


rival

by alchemic



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Based on typical dating sims, Blood, Character Deletion, Emotions, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Grief, Hacking, Happy Ending, He doesn't want to do this anymore, Horror, Mentions of other Undertale characters - Freeform, Protective Sans, Psychological Horror, Reader does not, Reader-Insert, Resets, Routes, Sans remembers, School Clubs, School Life, Tampering with files, Trust, Yandere-ish antagonist, You don't have a good time, You're the only thing keeping him together, but with a twist!, codes, cursing, dating game, dating sim, nobody does, protective Reader, reader is female, sans is a mess, transfer student, vomitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 22:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24763321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alchemic/pseuds/alchemic
Summary: Hey there! Looking for a fun and awesome school dating sim? Then welcome to Ebott Senior High School, where the spring semester is in full bloom!  As the new transfer student, everyone's got their eye on you, including some of the schools most eligible bachelors and bachelorettes. And with the Spring Flower Festival just around the corner, it's time to decide who you'll be taking as your Springtime Sweetie. Rumor is that if you confess under the cherry blossom tree you'll be destined to be together forever! Balance school work and after school clubs, friends, drama and more all while winning the hearts and souls of humans and monsters alike! Featuring:• Hours of playtime and diverting routes!• Over seven dateable characters (and a few secret ones too!)• Fully voice acted scenes and beautiful CGs!• And much, much more!So what are you waiting for? Get your spring semester started now inSeason of Love!
Relationships: Sans (Undertale)/Reader
Comments: 28
Kudos: 153





	1. loading save 4..

The sweet scent of flowers was drifting on the breeze as petals danced carefully in their embrace. It was a beautiful sunny day, the lull of far away laughter and ceremony filling the silence between you and your best friend. You both had just been part of the celebration moments ago, until he pulled you away to enjoy a peaceful rest on a bench with a few cold drinks in hand. The slightly sweet and tangy flavors of your favorite soda washed away the tired ache of your muscles and exhaustion over the nights of lost sleep. It was worth it though. Seeing it now before your eyes made all of the late nights, stressful conversations and endless paperwork really worth it.

"ya did a great job prez." 

You felt a smile grace your lips as you glanced over to the skeleton beside you, the amicable silence between the two of you now broken as he peeked at you through a lidded gaze. His eyelights almost twinkled in the sun.

"Well you know I can't take all the credit," you said softly, moving your gaze away from him and down to your beverage as you fiddled with the tab. "If it wasn't for my wonderful VP I don't know if I would've kept it all together."

He let out a laughing huff, brushing off your compliments like usual. Truth be told if it wasn't for all of your fellow council members you probably would of collapsed from all the expectations and work. Still.. Sans, more than anyone, had always been there for you. He was your '#1 fan' as he had so lovingly put it. So more than anyone.. he..

"Thank you Sans," you said clearly, turning to him. He looked surprised before glancing your way again, your eyes meeting and your smile growing just a bit wider. He laughed again, this time somewhat nervously as he rubbed the back of his neck. He paused for a moment, silence befalling you both again.

"you know there's uh.. actually a reason i asked you over here," he said, his fingers now tapping the canned coffee he held.

"Oh?" you asked playfully, still staring at him and you watched a blueish tint take over his brilliant white bones.

"mm," he said, looking on to the school grounds. "since this is our last i figured i should probably just.. say it."

You felt your smile falter a bit and your brows raise up in concern. 

Sans had been a little strange a few weeks leading up to the festival. In the six years you had known him and in the five and a half you had been best friends he had always been like a beam of sunlight in your life. He was warm, funny and so incredibly supportive. Some would make fun of you and say you guys were attached at the hip. Everywhere the President went her Vice President was right there with her. Except.. recently. He seemed tired. 

A little bit more absent minded. Still present every time you needed him, but his thoughts started floating somewhere else when you didn't. 

It had concerned you, but with the end of your high school year drawing closer and closer you understood. These warm spring days weren't going to last and with you two headed off to separate colleges things may not be like this again for a long time. The thought had left you rather melancholic, realizing that you and your best friend were going to be miles upon miles apart but like usual you turned those negative feelings into a desire to make this the best Spring Flower Festival ever. Perhaps Sans had been stewing in these feelings a little more than he let on?

"funny.." he said so softly you almost couldn't hear him. "no matter how many times i say it, it never gets any easier."

"Huh?" you asked but he shook his head.

"listen," he said, fulling turning his body towards you, setting his canned coffee on to the bench. Your eyes looked onto the expression on his face. It was.. mournful.. almost painful? You parted your lips to speak but but his expression became clouded, as the environment around you, the petals picking up with the wind almost blocking your field of view.

"i just wanted to say that i l̴͇̫̫͊̓̚██v̵̺̟͎̘̟̽̓̈́͘͠ y̴͉͍͎͌̓͆██-"

BEEP.

"What?" you asked uncertain you heard him correctly, but his words became muffled. Everything was becoming muted. The colors, the sounds, the sights. What? What was-

"p̸͔̠͉͊̓̿l̵̢̟͐̈́̚█se̸̢̝͊͊͘ d̸̞͉̔͠͝o̸͙̽͝██̢̠͉̓t̴͙͖͍̚͠ ████,"

BEEP.

It was hard to hear him.

"i̵̢̟͇͋͋͋ d̵̡̫͓̿̈́@̴̢͙̙͛͌̚n̵̢̫͙͛̔͠t̵̡͖̫̓██████t̴̻̦̿̚͜͝h̸͖̺̿͘█̵̦͓͉͑̓̓m̵͚͓̘̾̔!"

BEEP.

His form was fading.

"██████!!"

Why was everything..?

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Your eyes snapped open as you let out a small gasp, sunlight barely leaking into your room past your curtains. You were sweating, the sheets clinging to your skin as you squinted into your lightly sunlit room. All at once the world came crashing into you, head splitting with the signs of a migraine and a groan came out of your mouth. 

Ugh. 

What a wonderful way to start the day. 

After shuffling around your bed to find your phone and turning off that infernal screeching alarm, you took the water bottle on your bedside and took a long chug.

It was Monday and your week break from school was over. Springtime was finally here, and so began the spring semester of your final year of high school. The water bottle you finished off was promptly thrown into the trash as you stood up, trying to sort out your poor aching head. Your dream must've been pretty terrible with how you thrashed around last night and woke up in a cold sweat. But, you could hardly remember it, so you promptly deemed it not important and stumbled off to the bathroom to get ready and find yourself some medicine. Maybe some breakfast too, that might help.

It was quiet in your house as per usual, your parents overseas on business leaving you alone in a standard middle American home. Two stories and three bedrooms which included yours, your parents and a spare guestroom that your mother had made a joke that it was 'Sans' room' considering how often he spent the night. She always teased about you too making a cute couple. You kinda missed her right now. But they were off doing important overseas things.. and you had to think about your welcome back speech for the morning news today and murdering this terrible headache before making your way to school. Maybe you would call her later, just so you could hear her voice.

Washing your face felt wonderful and you carefully applied a little makeup and did your hair before grabbing some pills to eat with your breakfast. Peeling off your pajamas, you slipped into your neatly pressed and washed school uniform. You pulled up your plaid skirt and buttoned up your shirt before neatly adorning your tie. Last was the navy blue blazer, which had a few extra pins fastrened on it to identify you both as a member of the student council and the class President. One last glance in the mirror and you looked every bit the part of a smart and dependable 'seito kaichou'.... 

Oh man if Alphys could've heard that thought.... she'd never let you live it down.

The stairs creaked a bit into the empty house as you made your way down to a barren kitchen, school bag carelessly slung on your shoulder with a notebook in your hands. You spent some time cracking eggs, throwing a few pieces of bread into the toaster and pouring some orange juice as you went over your notes for the speech. Spending the last two nights throwing this together with the Headmaster is probably what gave you this headache, but that's what you get for goofing off for five days with Sans on your break. 

Speaking of...

It was... kinda weird he wasn't here. 

...Maybe he was running late? It wouldn't surprise you, the skeleton was notoriously lazy. Despite his amazing intelligence and quick wits he didn't really apply them to school, seeming to spend his days actually trying to figure out how to maximize his time of doing absolutely nothing. It never amazed you how much he managed to be present without actually doing anything most of the time, just throwing out the occasional joke or baiting the waters with a slightly good idea that one of the other council members would run off with and make their own. 

That would explain why he wasn't here yet. Maybe he was having a sorrowful parting with his bed? A funny thought and something you really wouldn't put past him.. but... Sans had always come over for breakfast since you both started high school together. He even began coming over a little earlier after your parents left, laughing with you in the early hours and making all kinds of weird stuff for breakfast. You still can't forget the time you woke up to him baking a quiche.

You hadn't even realize you'd been thinking about the skeleton so much until you wrote his name onto your notes instead of scratching something else out. Alright Miss President, it was time to focus! You put away your notes and ate your breakfast in silence while washing down some headache medicine with orange juice. After quickly cleaning your dishes and grabbing your bag and notes, you made your way to the door, grabbing a set of keys before swinging the door open. 

"gah!" 

You jumped and almost let out a yelp as you recognized the skeleton standing in your doorway. He had only been a few inches from the door before you had opened it.

"Sans!" you said, placing a hand on your chest before letting out a breath. "Stars, you scared the shit out of me."

"s-sorry," he said, taking a step back, looking a little flustered. Well, you were happy to see him but you couldn't help but take in his sheepish demeanor and much more disheveled than usual appearance. He had deep blueish bags underneath his eyes and his pants were terribly wrinkled while his shirt was unevenly buttoned and not properly tucked in. Not to mention... where was his jacket? He almost never took it off, even in the summer. Sure, he wasn't a picture perfect model student who wore his uniform correctly anyways, but this was a new level of unkempt, even for him. It didn't help that he was looking at you with such a tired and worn out expression, almost like he hadn't seen you in the past hundred years. You couldn't help the wave of concern that overcame you.

"Sans, are you ok?"

He just kind of shrugged.

"ah, me? yeah. fine. great.." 

The question had been simple enough, but the way he trailed off only raise your worries. Five and a half years of best friend experience told you he wasn't about to give himself away though, so instead you carefully opened up the door and stepped aside a little.

"Want some breakfast?" you asked gently, smiling down at him. "We still got time."

He seemed to finally look at you instead of past you, a twinge of surprise on his features before nodding.

"yeah, actually. breakfast sounds good.." 

Your faithful VP let himself in before sliding into his usual chair at the table, his own book bag hanging off the back. He slumped slightly, and you decided to make yourself busy instead of interrogating him with your gaze by making another batch of eggs and a few pieces of toast. ....The silence was a little odd. Normally there was never much of a quiet moment between you too, but you really couldn't say anything without asking how he was and you had already picked up in the mood that he probably didn't want to talk about it. So you let the silence be, the sounds of sizzling eggs and your own humming filling the air. With your back turned you missed out on the way he looked at you. 

Longing.. into sadness.. into something a little more painful. He had millions of things floating around in his skull, all of them wanting to be said but somehow the words just died before he even spoke them. And then, when something finally came..

"uh," he began, watching you as you turned your head back to him, a smile still gracing your lips.

He lost it. Gone. He couldn't.. He just..

"did you finish your speech?"

It was such a hollow question on his end. 

"Yup!" Of course you did. You were the most diligent and dependable student council president Ebott Senior High had seen, the Headmaster had even said so himself. You turned your back to him again, and already he missed your gaze as you pushed the eggs around in the pan, the sizzling and popping taking up the awkward air. "Nothing really special, just the same kind of old stuff of welcoming everyone back and making sure everyone gets started on their ideas for the Spring Flower Festival." 

"right, the festival," he muttered. The 'sacred' Spring Flower Festival, the last major celebration right before the few last months of the school year which meant the students always went all out. There was a lot of planning, negotiation and budgeting to be done, so you wanted to be sure to get a head start on all of it. The sooner you got students submitting ideas for booths and attractions the sooner you could get it all started. You finished up the eggs as the toaster popped up, plating up the perfectly cooked over easy eggs on top. You made a small stop at the fridge to grab the orange juice and ketchup for your friend before setting the plate down in front of him. 

The stiffness in his body seemed to relax a little as he took in the smells and glanced up at you.

"thanks," he said, and the genuine look of gratitude in his eyes softened your worries.

"You're welcome," you said, turning to grab a glass out of the cupboard as you heard the telltale sound of the ketchup bottle squirting all over his breakfast. You rolled your eyes and suppressed a giggle before turning back to him already stuffing the whole ketchup covered affair down. You took a spot next to him and poured him a fresh glass of orange juice. 

"Hey don't worry, it's not gonna run away from you," you joked. 

"ah, sorry. everything just looked so _eggcellent _i couldn't help myself."__

____

____

The giggle in your chest refused to be help back this time as you laughed at his pun. He winked at you before going back to eating, another silence befalling you two that was much more comfortable this time. You were really glad that your favorite skeleton was brightening up, even just a little bit. Then just as things got comfortable, a loud ping rang out from your cellphone, an all too familiar one at that, so much so that you didn't even need to pull it out to know who it was.

*  
Peter: Morning Boss! Just wanted to check in and make sure you touched on a few topics in your speech for toda..  
  
*

You let out a huff at the notification so early in the morning but decided to open it anyways. 

"petey bugging you already?" Sans asked playfully. You shrugged your shoulders and shook your head.

"Kinda, but that's why I'm glad he's secretary. Keeps us all in line," you said, writing up a reply to his message as Sans let out a snort. You shot him a mischievous glance. "Alright he keeps the _rest of us_ in line." 

You reached over to poke his cheek while he was chewing his final bite of food and he attempted to wave his fork to fend you off to no avail. Not that he really put in any effort to anyways. Your finger lightly pushed into his surprisingly soft skeletal cheek and he laughed while you stuck your tongue out at him.

"He's just checking in to make sure I got everything in my speech. There's a lot happening today," you say as you take your hand out to finish typing back your reply. Peter had sent over a nice and neat little list of all the events to cover in your speech, which you thankfully had already and didn't need to make any modifications to. You quickly snapped a few photos of your speech to send to him for his own personal notes and to make record of before glancing back up to Sans.

He had propped his elbow on to the table, resting his chin in his hand as he looked you over and you raised an eyebrow at him.

"hey," he began, his finger tapping onto the table. A habit, you had realized a few years ago, that he did when he was thinking about something deeply. He never took his gaze off you even as you cocked your head to the side, silently asking him to continue.

"why don't we just- i dunno," he began, suddenly looking a little apprehensive, "skip out on today?"

The skeleton flinched back a little at your surprised expression. You even gave him a moment to elaborate further but he instead gazed down to the table, picking at one of the decorative napkins.

"You want to skip out on the first day back to school?" you asked in disbelief. He shrunk back a little more in his chair but still didn't offer a explanation for himself even after a beat of silence, so you continued. 

"Never mind the fact that the President and Vice President not showing back up on the first day would probably not look great on our part," you added, crossing your arms, "there's so much going on today, why would you want to miss it?"

Still no answer from him. The fact he was refusing your gaze as well kind of hurt.

"The welcome back speech and events, seeing everyone again after the break, the final budgeting meeting after class, the new assigned seats," you rambled a bit but none of it was really seeming to grab his attention. Not even the assigned seats, and you knew how much you two loved betting to see if you could sit next to each other again. "..The new transfer student?"

You did not miss the way he stopped fumbling with the decorative napkin and squeezed his hand so tightly in a fist that his bones creaked a bit. It threw you off and he turned his gaze completely away from you and to the kitchen to the window that was over the sink.

"hah yeah, right. yeah.. who the fuck would want to miss that?"

..Okay..

What the hell was that about? 

You pursed your lips, not understanding how just last night you two had been on a phone call laughing and joking about all of that stuff to.. this. This awkwardly tense, heavily charged atmosphere with no explanation as to why he was like this.. It's not like he was being mean to you, but you two told each other everything! From weird school confessions and love letters you both received to that one time you got a rash on your butt and he subtly let everyone know through all of his ass related puns for the whole week. What was suddenly so forbidden for your best friend to speak to you about? 

..You wanted to be mad at him but seeing your normally funny and warm best friend become like this just made your heart ache in a way you couldn't describe.

"..Sans," you said delicately, watching how his shoulders tensed. Your gaze went towards the table before you carefully placed your hand over his clenched fist. His tight grasp released almost instantly at the feeling of your hand over his but he still didn't quite look at you. "Please.."

"..we're going to be late," was all he said, but he didn't make an effort to move, head still facing the window. Your mouth opened for a moment but you quickly closed it, shaking your head. 

"Right," you said, standing up and taking his dishes with you to the sink. He at least bothered to get up to put the juice and ketchup away before grabbing his book back off the chair and heading towards the front door. You couldn't help but just stand there, watching him vanish as he turned the corner, that ache in your heart growing.

This morning was quickly turning to shit.

  
  
  


The walk to school had been just as awkward as the latter half of your breakfast. It was still early so there weren't a lot of other students on their way to school just yet, which left you withSans and the uncomfortable silence that just kept worming it's way between you two. For the few students you did see, you greeted them warmly as usual, giving a wave as you walked before quickly falling back to silence. You couldn't help but glance his way every once in awhile, his demeanor almost worsening from when you found him on your front porch this morning. His eyelights were glued to the ground and his normally goofy smile was tight, one of his hands firmly clenched on his backpack strap and the other was shoved in his pocket.

The nagging concerns had only grown the closer you got to school, almost to the point where you even began to humor the idea of skipping out on today. Is there something going on today that Sans didn't want to be part of? He had reacted rather negatively to the mention of the new transfer student, which you couldn't really blame him for. It's was all anyone was talking about before you went on break. Who were they? Why did they transfer from such a prestigious school all the way out here to this small town? What were they like? Rumors had been floating around that they were rich and beautiful and maybe secretly a pop star or something. You had gotten a little sick of it yourself, but it would be exciting to have a new face around here. Maybe Sans already knew them?

You were tempted to ask, but somehow him just shrugging you off stung a little more than the silence. How many more burns could you take today before you cornered him into talking? Not many, that much you knew. And you didn't really like the idea of forcing an answer out of him. Everything came so naturally between you two.. so, why? Why was this such an issue now?

The two of you finally neared the front gate of school. The grounds were littered with students hugging and talking between each other, a cheerful energy filling the air as everyone chatted about what they did over the break and how they were near the end of the year. Many more students greeted you as you approached, throwing waves and energetic 'Welcome backs!' to both you and Sans. You laughed and waved back but Sans remained rather silent. 

"Hey you two!" a familiar voice rang out.

You turned back, watching as Peter ran up behind the two of you with a friendly smile on his features. He had a sweet face, some of the baby fat still clinging to his cheeks and his brown eyes excused an affableness that made him one of the most popular people in the senior class. Everyone got a long with him, and his incredible eye for detail and organization made him the best Secretary you could ask for. 

"Morning Peter," you said as he took place on your vacant side, continuing your walk towards the school building. 

"I reviewed your speech for today Pres and I gotta say, nice work," he said, pulling out his phone and swiping at the photos you had sent him earlier. "Looks like the week off didn't put a dent in your writing skills." 

He sounded genuinely impressed, which you beamed at. As President you had to give a lot speeches and presentations for the student body, so you did your best to at least make them enjoyable as possible since they were usually sandwiched between several incredibly boring ones made by faculty. 

"Thanks! I revised it a bit to keep it a little shorter since we have so much to cover, but I'm glad to get your approval. Did you forward it to April?" you asked and he nodded.

Much like you and Sans, Peter and April were very close friends since childhood. Never one without the other. But when Peter began his run for secretary you were actually quite surprised surprised that she took on the run for Historian. She was shy and sweet, the quiet type who never said much but had a lot of heart. Not to mention she was just about the cutest bunny monster you had ever seen! You'll never forget the look on her face when she actually won the run.

"Good, I'll give you the direct copy of my notes once I finish giving the speech this morning," you said, stopping short of the large staircase that leaded into the front of the school. "Have you seen Yvette yet? There's a few budgeting things I wanted to clarify with her."

"I saw her talking to Jasmine a little while ago," he said, a sly look in his eye.

Oh boy.

Well, compared to Peter and April's great teamwork, Yvette and Jasmine's was... rocky at best and catastrophic at worst. Yvette was your Treasurer, and a fantastic one at that. She had a wonderful sense of numbers and scale, always seeing both the big picture and the tiny details in a project. She also had an incredible sense of fairness, which made her the best with working with clubs to maintain proper budgets for each of them.

Except for the sports committee head, Jasmine. 

She was the captain of the volleyball team and huge factor as to why the team was #1 in the country. Every week she came to the council asking for more budgeting for sports along with Coach Anderson and every week her and Yvette would get into it.

Hopefully they weren't already fighting again.

"Maybe I'll just text her," you said, pulling your phone out from your pocket.

"Don't bother," she stated firmly as you turned to see her approach, her strut and sway as elegant as ever. Her beautiful dark hair framed her deeper complexion, and her sharp gaze drilled a hole into you behind her glasses, one that she turned onto Peter. "You never mind your business do you?" Her tone was as pointed as her glare but Peter just shrugged it off with a chuckle. 

"Hey I can't help myself when you're chatting so loudly with your girlfriend like that," he said and she rolled her eyes. Yvette gave up arguing the point that they weren't dating ages ago and simply decided it wasn't worth the time. 

"Glad to see you two again," she said, tone softening as you smiled. You were too. It had only been a week but you had all made a promise to not do any student council related business during it and to just enjoy the last break you had before the end of the year, a change from your guys' usual pace of always discussing school. It had been nice, but you missed all of your friends dearly. "Didn't have too much fun without us right?"

"tons," Sans said, startling you a bit. He had been so quiet this whole time, the fact he had said anything at all.. and in such a normal tone too. You glanced a him and it was almost like nothing had happened this morning. His uniform was still a mess but he just slouched like normal, the corners of his mouth turned up in his usual smile and he even shot a wink at Yvette. "you could even say it was a skele-to-"

"Don't," was all she said, very firmly. Peter laughed and you just.. kind of stood there, staring at your best friend. Did.... his mood just take complete 180 or ....were you crazy? It's like all traces of his distress just disappeared.

..You felt that headache coming back. 

"Anyways, what did you want to discuss?" Yvette said, catching your gaze. You fumbled for a moment, switching your brain from concerned best friend back to dependable class president again before speaking. 

"Just.. wanted to make sure I got everything in my speech. C'mon, lets walk and talk up to the council room, I'm sure April is there with the Headmaster," you noted, turning on your heel and heading up the stairs. You should of brought some more medicine with you.

  
  


The morning announcements went off without a hitch. Headmaster Warren had given an incredibly long a drawn out dialogue about how excited he was to finish one of the most successful school years to date, and how proud he was of all of his students and staff, and.. the last part you had actually tuned out. You head was so washed with thoughts of Sans, from his attitude this morning to the way he completely went back to 'normal' in the blink of an eye, that you couldn't be bothered to listen. On your way to the council room he had cracked a few more jokes, much to Peter's delight and Yvette's dismay, and you were left wondering if you had just imagined the distress on his features earlier. He never missed a beat in the conversation, like he had practiced it like you practiced your speech in the mirror last night. It was.. concerning to say the least. The pain in your heart was twisting into a knot and you were more worried than ever about him.

Worst part was now you had several hours before your lunch break when you could talk to him again. Ugh. You pinched the bridge of your nose as you walked down the quiet hallway before finally making it to your homeroom, carefully opening the door

"Ah, there you are," Mrs. Sato's voice warmly rang out at your arrival. You smiled in her direction before the class erupted in chatter.

"Aye, class Prez!" 

"Nice speech!"

"I'm so excited for the Spring Flower Festival I can't wait!"

Several students began conversing with one another before Mrs. Sato cleared her throat and they quieted down. 

"If you wouldn't mind taking your seat Miss President, there's a lot to cover today and I wanted to make sure we were all present before we got started," she said giving you another smile and you quickly made your way towards the back of the class towards seat next to Sans. His head was in his hand again and his eyesockets were close, that usual grin still stretched on his face.

"Welcome back everyone," Mrs. Sato began, breaking your gaze from him, "I hope you all had a wonderful break. I'm sure you all know from our marvelous announcements this morning but we have a lot in store for today!"

Another small spurt of chattered erupted that she quickly dismissed again. 

"Let's get the most exciting of them all out of the way, shall we?" she said, gesturing towards the door as it carefully swung open. The heels of shoes clicked on the floor as someone entered, and whispers began to fill the air as a student you didn't recognize stood at the front of the class.

"Everyone, this is-"

You flinched as a sharp pain hit your head suddenly and you let out a short breath, Mrs. Sato's words turning fuzzy and your vision blurred. You found yourself holding you head in your hands as the room spun, suddenly feeling a little nauseous. Thankfully it seemed to only last for a few moments before leaving as quickly as it came, but you were left letting out a few shaky puffs of air before feeling a hand on your arm. You recognized those bony fingers and glanced over to Sans, who had a panicked expression on his face. You felt his hand tremble a bit as he said your name in a whisper, on that quickly got drowned out by the chorus of students 'ooo'-ing and 'aah'-ing at the new transfer student. You couldn't help but glance back to the front of the class where.. someone stood. 

...

Someone.. you couldn't quite see? .... ...This headache was probably worse than you thought. You.... couldn't quite make out the blurry features of the student. You could see their uniform, the same as yours with a pleated skirt, white button up, tie and navy blazer but... You couldn't make out the details of their face. It was like your eyes couldn't focus on anything and it made the ghostly pains of your headache come back in the form of a dull ache. 

"Lucky for you, we have the student body President in class with us. If you have any questions at all feel free to ask her!" Mrs. Sato's voice cut through the pain and you felt Sans' grasp on your arm tighten considerably. "Take any of the empty seats to sit in."

Empty? Your class was full rig-

Another jagged pain, this one making you grunt in response as the heels of shoes clicked onto the floor once again. They got closer on your right before standing right next to you, Sans grasp slipping off of your arm as they approached. You glancing in their direction, noticing that even as they approached you couldn't see anything, their face a blur... almost like it had been... rubbed out by an eraser.

"Is it alright if I sit here?" they asked, their tone soft and pleasant to the ears. They referred to the seat next to yours, the one that █░̴̠̙̠͌͌͝e̵̢̟̽̾̚͜l̵̡͖̪͑̓̕i̸̴͍͎̙̫̝̘͊̐͌̓͑̚█▀a occupie-

...

No.. 

..to the empty seat next to you.

"..Sure," you said. You head felt like it was a mess, but you tried to not let it show. They smiled, you think, as the took the seat and you glanced back towards Sans, who once again had his head in his hands and an almost unreadable expression on his face. You let it go for now before turning back to the transfer student, realizing you totally missed their name. 

You politely introduced yourself to them.

"If there's anything you want to ask don't hesitate alright?" you said and they nodded.

"Thank you," they said, before seeming to glance right past you.

"Well!" Mrs. Sato's voice said, cutting the air and startling you a bit. "Now that we've introduced the transfer student, lets begin discussing the upcoming evens of this quarter."

It was.. difficult to listen. 

That pounding in your head just wouldn't stop and the sudden bouts of nausea and pain were getting to you. It was unpleasant, the room felt like it was sliding around you and you could feel a small layer of sweat gathering on your forehead. You've never experienced anything like this, and the more it went on the more and more you felt like you were slipping into a hazy headspace. Despite your attempts at just simply suffering in silence, you apparently didn't go unnoticed. 

"Mrs. Sato?" that sweet voice just seemed to pierce through your cloudy mind and the teacher's muddled speech. "The President isn't looking to good."

It was like a spotlight got turned on as everyone turned back to look at you, Mrs. Sato included. 

"Are you alright dear?" she asked, a strange silence filling the air.

"I'm-" you said, taking a deep breath, placing a hand on your forehead. You could hear the hushed blabbering of the students around you, making your head swim even more than before. You couldn't even form a coherent sentence at this point, darkness finding a way into your vision.

"she's not feeling well," Sans' voice washed over you, warm and gentle, and you heard his chair squeak as he got up and put a firm hand on your shoulder. "i'll take her to the nurse."

Mrs. Sato's repose got washed away as Sans' quickly ushered you up and grabbed your bags, giving you his shoulder to lean on as he took you out of class. It all happened so quickly it almost left you stumbling and fuzzy, so much so that you heard a strange pinging noise as you walked out of the classroom. It faded into the distance as Sans began walking a little bit too rapidly for you to keep up with.

"Sans.." you said, almost exasperated and he stopped, your panting filling the quiet halls. He kept staring down the empty hallways, the distant sounds of classroom chatter filling the space between you two, and a look of indescribable terror was now on his features. You slowly realized he had been murmuring something to himself as you tried to push back your head pains to hear him speak.

"..back.. why did they come back..? why? i though they.. for sure.. we got so far.."

It was incoherent. His eyesockets were empty, the darkness of them horrifying you in a way that made you say his name again, this time more firmly.

He paused, finally turned his full gaze onto you, those little eyelights of his nothing more than fuzzy white dots. Tears almost threatened to escape his eyesockets and your heart clenched tightly at the sight of them. Your hand reached out and touched his cheek, and that seemed to break him, those quiet tears now falling freely. ...You didn't understand. You couldn't really, as he still offered you no explanation to what had him so on edge today, and not this headache was threatening every corner of your mind with pain. 

Why..?

What shook him up so much?

...You felt like you were forgetting something.

The more you thought, the more your head hurt. You tried to push past it, to find whatever was drifting the edge of your mind so much but.. you couldn't. So instead you decided to comfort your friend. You moved your hand from his cheek and placed your arms around him, bringing his head to your chest. He didn't hesitate to sink into your embrace, his arms tightly wrapping around your waist as his fingers grasped onto your blazer. You carefully ran a hand over his skull, not really knowing what to say.

You wanted to be there for him, to make whatever was eating him up on the inside like this to go away and never return. You wanted his smile back.... Peter had always teased you for being a little protective of Sans, but you couldn't help it. Nothing made you happier than seeing the big grin of his on his face... hearing him laugh as you two shared an inside joke or the warmth you felt whenever you two went to Grillby's on your Friday to celebrate the weekend. You were truly at the peak of your happiness when you gifted him those tickets to the star gazing event at the observatory the next city over, the look on his face forever burned into your memory as your favorite smile of his.

Now seeing him like this.. 

He said your name, pulling away a little and you reluctantly did the same, still keeping your arms wrapped around him. He seemed a little tentative to let go of you too. Somehow those dark circles underneath his eyes seemed deeper, making him seem more exhausted than ever... and you.. just couldn't help yourself. 

"Sans, please," you almost begged, "won't you tell me what's wrong..?"

Your voice was becoming more labored, every word becoming more faded as that ache burned your head again. His eyelights began darting around your face in a slight sense of worry before shaking his head.

"we-" his voice squeaked a bit before he cut himself off. "we need to get you to the nurse first."

That didn't make you feel much better, worry still chomping away at your insides, but he did say first. Hopefully that meant when you got to the nurse's office he would tell you. You simply nodded and let go of him, placing your hands on his shoulders for some support so you didn't fall. He took a few moments before releasing his hold on you too, placing one hand firmly on your waist and offering you to lean on him again. It was a slow and quiet trudge to the other side of the school where the nurses office was, filled with that same awful silence as before. Thankfully all of the senior classes took place on the second floor, so you only had to descend one set of stairs very shakily with Sans' help.

You probably would of stumbled all the way down without him.

He pulled the nurses' door opened, and Ms. Ramirez looked back at you both a little surprised. 

"Oh, my dear, are you ok?"

She quickly approached the two of you and you let out a breath. 

"Yes, I'm ok just.. feeling really light headed." She observed you for a moment before gesturing to one of the beds to lay down in. She also glanced at Sans briefly but didn't comment on his appearance at all, which you found rather strange, but let it go as he helped you over to the bed. It was slightly uncomfortable but thankfully the room wasn't dancing around you anymore. 

"Would you like for me to call your parents for you?" she asked, approaching your bedside next to Sans.

"they're outta town," he said quietly, not really taking his gaze off of you. 

"Is it alright if I have him stay here with me for a bit?" you asked and she nodded.

"I have some paperwork to take to the office so I'll be right back to take your temperature, okay?" You said a small thanks as she closed the curtain behind her giving you some privacy to rest. Sans took a chair next to you to sit down and placed your bags onto the floor. It was quiet again as you took some relief in the fact that the pain was subsiding now that your body had a chance to relax. You closed your eyes and took a deep breath.

"So..?" you asked, hope brimming the edge of your voice as you turned towards him. 

Quiet again.

He stared at you and then down at the edge of the bed and then at his hands, the sound of bones scraping together and he rubbed his thumbs.

"i.." he began softly but found himself failing short again. Your brows furrowed a bit again before letting out a sigh.

"I don't get it," you mumbled, eyes cast towards the ceiling as you spoke, "what's going on with you that you can't tell me?"

The tenderness in your tone punched Sans in his nonexistent gut as another wave of guilty set in. What could he say? How could he say it? Every time he built the courage to say something he'd look at you, at your soft features and smile, and every time it'd form a lump in his throat he just couldn't get out. It was happening again now, as he formed a few words in his head but you turned to glance at him, sadness evident in your eyes.. and they evaporated.

"..Did I do something wrong?"

Ah that did it. 

If his soul hadn't cracked before that sentence alone would of done him in.

"no!" He didn't mean to raise his voice like that and startle you, but the thought of you ever doing anything wrong was.. unthinkable. "no.. never."

You were glad at least, that you hadn't accidentally hurt his feelings in someway but, you still weren't getting anything from him.

"Then what?"

Another prolonged bit of silence. You were really starting to hate that this is how the flow of your conversations were going. You wanted to give him space to think, some time to put his thoughts into words, but this was driving you crazy! The headache was making your irritable and you really didn't want to deal with it and Sans' strange behavior at the same time.

"...how many?"

His question made your face scrunch a bit.

"How many what?"

He paused and let out a exhale that made his posture crumple.

"..how many time have we been here?"

...

...You didn't quite understand.

"In the nurses office?" you asked, glancing around the room. "Besides the time Brock Mitchell passed out and it took four of us and you 'supervising' to bring him here? ..Not many?" You answered in uncertainties because you really didn't understand the point of his question, but he simply shook his head.

"here.. on this day. where i take you to the nurses office for your headache and you miss the rest of the day," he explained. "where they take advantage of the fact that you aren't there to try to talk to me. where i'm.. forced to interact with them like i don't have a choice.. where no matter how hard i try i can't shake them or get them to leave me alone. how many times have we been here?"

You sat up a bit, your headache encouraging you to do anything but that, but you ignored the pain. Sans was.. scaring you with the way he spoke. Despondent.. Quiet.. And ..it wasn't just anger that carefully skirted his tone of voice. ...It was hatred.

"Sans, I don't understand.." you said and his shoulders slumped even more.

"..you said that another time too."

Another pausing beat.

"but everything was so different last time. they weren't here and we.. made it so far. we even.. i thought that we finally.."

He sounded far away, like he was slipping right past your fingers. He said something else but you couldn't quite catch it, the sharp pain in your head making a reappearance as your hand shot out and grabbed his arm out of fear of him just disappearing right before your eyes. He flinched and looked at you with surprise as you fully sat up.

"Sans," your voice was rigid and you realized you were gripping him a bit tightly so you carefully loosened your grasp until you were gently holding on to him. He never took his eyelights off you though even with the uncertainty dancing in his expression. You were at a loss of words for the moment. The pain made it difficult to understand what exactly he was saying, who exactly this person who was referring to, and why he looked so sad. But there was something you could say...

"..You know you're the most important person in the world to me right?" That sentence was every as bit embarrassing to say as it was thinking it in your head but.. you felt like you had to say it. The look on his face also reaffirmed that fact.

"I still don't understand what's got you so spooked," you spoke softly, watching as he carefully placed a hand on top of yours. "But I do know one thing, and it's that I'll always be here for you. Whether that means kick the ass of whoever's harassing you or helping you sort out whatever is going through that skull of yours.. I'll be here. To help and support you. Whenever and wherever.. and no matter how many times it takes." You used the hand that wasn't currently preoccupied with his to wipe his cheek free of the tears that fell from his eyes.

"..do you promise?" His tone was barely above a whisper and you nodded.

"Of course!"

Maybe you spoke a bit too cheerfully because the static was once again returning to your head. It must of been apparent on your features because Sans let go of your hand and encouraged you to lay back down. When your back hit the bed you realized how exhausted you felt fending off the pain for so long, but you didn't want to leave your skeleton alone right now, watching as he clenched and unfurled his hands almost like he was trying to grasp something. Your eyes were having a hard time staying open though, eyelids feeling heavy and slowly sliding closed.

"sweetheart?"

....

He never called you that nickname before...

...

You think.. 

But the slight clench in your heart made you think otherwise. You were too tired to speak, so you instead let out a small noise of recognition.

"..i don't want to leave.."

"..Then don't."

It wasn't very responsible for you to say that as President but.. you didn't want him to leave either. His presence was comforting, even in his saddened state. You two were always together and you wanted it to stay that way forever.

"..okay," was all he said, and you felt his hand take yours. The darkness surrounding your mind would be denied no longer as the pain faded and you finally fell asleep.

  
  
  


The sound of a school bell startled you awake, signaling the end of the day.

You groaned, noticing the room had grown brighter with a light orangish light that filled every nook and cranny in it's hue. Your head thankfully felt a little better. Not great by any means, but it was defiantly more tolerable than before. Quietly you sat up, glancing around and noticing that a certain skeleton was missing. Well.. it's not like he could technically skip out on the day here, despite what you said. Maybe Ms. Ramirez sent him back? It wasn't a totally unreasonable thought.. until you saw his book bag still on the ground next to yours. ..Where did he..? You pulled out your phone from your skirt pocket and looked at a variety of messages on your screen.

*  
Peter: We should probably get everyone together for lunch to discuss a little bit about the Flower Festival, you know just to get a headstar..

April: hey are you ok? someone said they saw sans taking you to the nurses office.. don't push yourself to hard :c

Mom: Hi sweetie! Just wanted to let you know that your dad and I are still doing well, we actually just had an amazing lunch here that we'l..

Yvette: Please don't tell me you're going home. I don't know if I can handle Sans running another meeting like last time. How does he hav..  
  
*

There were more from other students, asking if you were okay and some other unrelated stuff. As much as you wanted to go through them there were to many to sort though, and you had a nagging feeling in the pit of your stomach you just couldn't shake off. You bent down and grabbed both Sans and your bags before opening the curtain to the rest of the nurse's office. .....No one was here.

..That was the final bell wasn't it? 

Shouldn't you be hearing the masses of students leaving their classes and heading off to clubs or back home? 

..Why was it so quiet?

...

You at least felt well enough to attend the after school council meeting. so you decided to start making your way to the council room. Just like you thought, the school was empty and even taking a glance outside made your stomach churn. No one. No students hanging out after class, no sports clubs practicing. Nothing.

You were here.

Alone.

..Was everyone sent home? If so.. why were you here?

Where did Sans go? 

...You should probably text him.

The council room was up on the third floor so you slowly began ascending the large staircase up, trying to ignore the dizziness still clinging to your brain. You decided to instead busy yourself with writing a message to Sans as you walked.. The last text conversation was buried beneath all the other messages but eventually you managed to find it at you made it to the third floor. 

*  
You: Hey, where are you? Did something happen? Cause nobody's here. Please try to text me back I'm actually a little worri  
  
*

You stopped typing as you hear the clicking of heels approach down the hall. Glancing up you saw the transfer student walking your way. 

"Oh! You're still here," you said, actually a little relieved to see another person around. You.. still had a hard time looking at them but you had more major concerns going on right now. "Do you know where everyone else went?" 

"Home," was all they said, getting closer. Your body almost took an unexpected step back but you stopped. The stairs were just behind you. 

"Uhh, right. Did they send everyone home early.. or something?"

They continued to not say anything, finally stopping before you. You caught the whiff of something.. strange in the air, almost metallic as it assaulted your nose and threatened the edges of your mind with an other dizzy spell. You also realized they had their hands behind their back. 

"..Why?" 

It was the only thing they asked. 

Okay, great yeah. Just ignore your question completely. Sure. 

"Why what?" you asked, slowly squaring yourself up to them. You were at least taller them and a bit more athletically built compared to their smaller more delicate frame. You weren't even really sure why you were trying to size them up but there was this air of.. hostility radiating off them. 

"Why are you always in my way?" they accused, their sickly sweet voice dripping with venom. Your hair was standing on ends but before you could even speak they stepped closer.

"Why is it, that no matter how hard I try I can't get rid of you? The other girls were easy. Just a click and they were gone. But... I couldn't access your file. Why is it that no matter how hard I searched I just couldn't find it?"

"W-wha-"

"Do you know how much time I wasted going through all of those stupid fucking routes? You needed a perfect score in all of them to get the secret endings so you could unlock this one, ya know? It took forever! So much so that I got impatient... So I just ...deleted them. That way they had no other choice but to fall for me! But.... I couldn't delete you. So instead I played the route. Once. Twice. Three times..."

You didn't understand. 

Endings? Routes?

What in the fuck were they going on about?!

"So why?"

Your heart was pounding, as was your head, their tone going from sweet to down right malicious.

"Why? WHY? WHY? WHYWHYWHYWHY? WHY IS IT THAT EVEN WHEN I GOT A PERFECT SCORE, HE STILL CHOSE YOU? E̦̪͕V͙͜E̡̠͉R̢̠͖Y͍͓,̢̻̦. Ș̺͜I͎͕̘N͎͉̻G͉̦͚L̢͖͜E͍̪̫ .̸̺͙͍̒̚̕ T̴͇̠͛̚I̴̼͎̝͆̾̿M̵͚̠̘͐͠E̸̠͇̪̓̓̓!?"

Their voice became distorted beyond reason, making the sharp pain in your head return.

"What are you even-"

"I've had enough," the said, cutting you off. "Get out of my way you pretentious piece of fucking trash."

They whipped their arms out from behind their back and... 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


stabbed you.

  
  
  
  


It all happened so quickly you almost couldn't believe it. You didn't want to, but the piercing pain that shot through your body as the knife entered your abdomen told you that this was reality. Nothing came out of your mouth but a silent scream before they took the blade out and stabbed you again. It was a white hot searing pain that exploded into heat that spread across everything. 

And blood.

A lot of it. 

You could feel it sliding down your stomach as you staggered, unable to process anything other than the laughter coming from the person in front of you. You swung, body mostly acting on instinct and your fist actually managing to connect with their face as the stopped laughing and sputtered.

"You stupid fucking whore!" 

  
  
  


They pushed you.

  
  
  


And as you fell, you realized that the only thing behind you were the stairs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for checking out this fic! It's my first time publishing my work, so I hope you enjoyed it. It's rather obviously inspired by self-aware games and ended up becoming a lot longer than I hoped, so I'll be splitting it into two parts (hopefully). Please look forward to the next chapter! (ง •̀ω•́)ง✧


	2. game over.

Pain was the only thing you felt when you managed to come to.

Agonizing.

Excruciating.

Pain.

You felt like you were laying in a puddle, something sticking to your face and body as you laid motionless at the bottom of a flight of stairs. The white hot burning sensation in your stomach accompanied by the aches in your back, head and arms was absolutely torturous. You nearly passed out from it, a wave of nausea hitting you like a truck. 

But you held on.

The harrowing realization of what just happened was.. terrifying. It sent pins and needles dancing across your skin the more you thought, unable to move from your puddle on the floor. You had been stabbed and pushed down a flight of stairs by the transfer student, who had been shouting about some nonsense of routes and scores... Screaming at you. Mocking you. The waves of anger you slowly began to feel were replaced with an icy cold recognition.

You were scared.

..Is this ...how you died?

Why? Why did this happen? How could you go from a week vacation laughing and hanging out with your friends to this? To this terrible morning accompanied by an awful headache to now laying in these empty school halls bleeding out from a stab wound. This just shouldn't be happening, right?

You sputtered, spitting out a mix of saliva and blood from your mouth. The half lucid thoughts swirling around in your mind were making the aches even worse and the horror of reality was settling deep into every fiber of your being. There was something you could do right? You weren't just going to bleed out here.. right?

Your phone.

Where was your phone?

Your fingers twitched as you tried your best to move, the pain flaring up even more as you let out a jagged breath. Fuck.

Fuck! 

FUCK!

Every cell in your body burned as you screamed at yourself to get up. You managed to shakily get your hand towards your skirt but there was nothing inside your pocket. Right.. you had been holding your phone and texting Sans. Which means you must of dropped it either when you were stabbed or when you fell.

Dammit.

Tears gathered in your eyes and you let out a small sob. You should've just..

You should of just listened to Sans. Stayed home with him. Skipped out on school. Avoided all of this..

Sans.

Where was he? Was he ok? The thought of him was enough for you to convince your body to get up. You shakily put your hands out and managed to make yourself sit up, realizing you had been laying in a small pool of your own blood that your uniform was now soaked with it. It took several minutes of pained grunting and nearly throwing up to stand, using the railing of the stairs to support you. From what you could see you were on the second floor now, an orange light cascading into the hallway from the windows. The whole school was still filled with the same eerie silence as before, not a single soul in sight. You could also see splatters of blood on the stairs, probably where you hit it on your way down. A shudder ripped through you, slightly relieved that you hadn't managed to break anything.

..You think.

Your whole body was in a searing pain so it made it a little hard to tell. You carefully began to climb the stairs, your head spinning from strain and blood loss. On the landing before the second set of stairs you saw your phone, as well as both of your backpacks that you must've dropped on your descent. Maybe they cushioned your fall a little? The case had cracked off you phone however, and it looks like it had been smashed by something.

"You've gotta be... fucking with me.." you said between pained breaths. You couldn't bend down to reach it, knowing you'd probably collapse if you did. ...Could you make it downstairs to the faculty office? ...Would anyone even be there?

No.. you knew for a fact that your fellow council members would be here. They always were, even when the sun started to set. Still, you had been stabbed, a shocking reality you were still coming to terms with and didn't exactly like the idea of bleeding out while walking around trying to find help. You didn't have much but applying some pressure to the wound may help at least stop more bleeding. You managed to dig out a handkerchief from your bag and decided to leave the rest, too weak to carry yourself at the moment much less anything else. The dauntingly laborious task of climbing the stairs now laid before you, and the more sensible part of your brain tried to rationalize maybe just laying back down and accepting your fate would be the easiest option. Something burned inside you though, unwilling to succumb to the pain and despair. You were gonna make that asshole pay if it was the last thing yo- 

**SLAM!**

You almost let go of the railing at the noise. By some miracle you managed to hold on, thankfully saving yourself another descent down the stairs, but the sound left you shaking. Chest heaving as you shook and your eyes wide, you tried your best to discern where the noise came from. From who it came from.

..But no one came.

..Someone was still here though.

You felt numb realizing the transfer student might still be stalking around the halls. Getting to the council room quickly would be your best bet, but you'd no longer have the stair railing to support you. Crossing the gap of the hallway was a little difficult but you made it to the wall, clinging to it desperately. It was so incredibly quiet in the halls besides your labored breathing, making your whole body crawl. The handkerchief you grabbed was already getting soaked in blood but you kept the pressure. A lot of blood had already been lost and you really didn't need to pass out again.

Just a little farther.

...

That metallic smell again.. It was coming from you right? 

..The council room was just around the corner. 

You were so close. 

A grunt found it's way out of you as you turned the corner, pressing on your wound more firmly now as it stung. You glanced up and down the hall and saw the council room door open.....

  
  
  


There was... blood on it.

  
  
  


..A hand print, by the looks of it.

...

Your whole body seized. Shaking you stood there and stared, the pain almost too much to bear as you heard your own teeth chatter. Ah. No. This.. wasn't right.

This wasn't happening, right?

Pain, blistering hot shot through you again but you were scrambling, to make it over to the room, gasping and almost falling over yourself until you made it, leaning on the door to look it the club room.

Blood.

And dust.

The smell was so heavy it made your head spin. Slowly, your head turned to look at the ground, catching the sight of a body sprawled on the floor, a pile of dust beneath it.. like they were protecting..

Peter... and April?

You retched. It slammed into you full force as you stumbled back and fell to your knees, biting down on your tongue to prevent a scream. Instead you threw up. You were spiraling, your brain failing to comprehend what you just saw and trying to make sense of everything. Gasping you looked back to the room seeing a leg farther back behind a desk.

Yvette.

"..No.." was all you could say, tears pouring from your eyes.

No this.

This wasn't happening.

This wasn't happening!

You..

You felt numb. You scrambled back the best you could but you were swaying too much, putting your hands on the floor as you tried your best to support yourself. It was.. all to much. Your friends.. they were...   
...Was this all that transfer students fault? Did they do this?

  


..Sans..

Sans wasn't in there too.. was he?

You wouldn't be able to tell.. would you. He'd be dust. Just like that he'd be... Gone.

You cried, an anguishing sob left your mouth as tears clouded your vision and you wailed into the empty halls. Please.. this couldn't be real right? Your body began to curl up, unable to take anymore of this. It was a dream. It had to be. A terrible, awfully fucked up dream. You'd wake up in your bed and it would be morning and none of this would of happened. You'd have breakfast with Sans, you'd go over your speech again with Peter and Yvette. April would offer her encouragement and.. and.. None of this would of.. Your sobs turned to quiet hiccups as you cried, the pain of your wounds too great to continue. It was all too much. Too much. Too much. Too-

**_CRASH!_ **

You nearly choked at the sound.

It came from somewhere on the same floor. 

Fear and panic seeped into every cell of your being as you tried to get back onto your feet. The wound in your stomach was getting worse, you could feel it as you struggled to stand and as the world turned around you. The convulsions taking over your body were not helping. What were you suppose to do? Calling the police was the single thing you had in mind but you were still phoneless. Stepping foot into that room was absolutely out of the question. Going up one flight of stairs was one thing, but making it back down three?

You've trapped yourself. You came all the way up here just to.. see this. Now you were going to die here too.. weren't you?

You were so close to your breaking point, the sense of hopelessness creeping into every fiber of your being as you sat there.

...

In the silence of your despair a voice rang out.

...

A voice you recognized.

"Sans!" you choked. You couldn't hear what he said but you would recognize his baritone rumblings anywhere. He was still here! Still.. alive.

Dammit.

You needed to get to him. But what the hell were you going to do in this state? 

Something. 

You had to do something. 

There was a supply closet not too far from here. If that transfer student was still waiving a knife around you needed something to arm yourself with. The pain in your body was becoming dull as a wave of determination washed over you, making your way to the supply closet and opening the door. It was mostly desk and chairs, neatly stacked away along with some old booths from previous festivals. Shit. Not really anything too useful. You noticed some basketballs tucked further back and went inside, dust clogging your nose and throat as you continued to huff and puff oxygen into your aching body. There had to be something...

Something glinted in the corner of your eye. A bat, tucked away with some other sports supplies. 

You grimaced a bit but.. it was better than nothing.

It felt heavy in your hands being made of metal but you didn't dwell on it as you made your way out of the supply closet and closer to where you heard Sans and the crashing noise. It wasn't long before you began to hear the sounds of a confrontation.

"-and tell me where the **_hell_** she is!"

"Well you've never said that before. Good, we're getting somewhere."

It was Sans and.. the transfer student. They were around the corner. You took one more breath of painful air before carefully peeking around. They were both further down the hall, the transfer student having their back turned to you. You could see their hands, neatly placed their back again, the knife glimmering threateningly and lightly coated with blood and dust. Your jaw tensed as you looked at Sans.

He... was a mess.

Between the tears and hatred in his sockets you almost didn't recognize him. He was holding his hand out, but the rest was blocked by the transfer student's body. 

"This could of all been avoided you know. If you just acted how you were coded, all of this would of never happened!"

You crept closer.

"don't try to blame me for your choices you **_f u c k i n g f r e a k_** ," he growled. His tone was terrifying. You watched as even the transfer student's grip seemed to falter a bit.

"My choices? I made all the right choices! Every time! And still I could never get you! You always chose her, no matter how much time we spent together. No matter how much she spent with her other love interest! It was always her! I only played this game for you!"

Game. 

Again.. talking about this crap that you just couldn't..

..This was a game? 

Routes. Deletion. Files.

This.. was a joke right?

Your friends were dead. You were bleeding out as the fucker spoke and this was suppose to be some sort of game!?

An irrational anger was taking over you as you got closer. Both were so engrossed in their conversation they apparently didn't hear you.

"I was getting tired of all of this. Of the same thing happening again and again! All I did was some modifications to do something different since I couldn't delete her like the rest. And now look! Things are different! She can't get in the way anymore!"

"..y-you.." Sans voice broke. You could hear his bones rattle as he shook. His eyelights were gone as he said your name in a whisper.

"She's dead. She won't be bothering us anymore! And now that she's dead her file will be corrupted so she can't get back up either no matter what tricks you try to pull. Now it's just the two of us with no one else to interfere. You'll be my Springtime Sweetie and I'll finally get to keep you all to myself!"

Their pleasant tone made you nauseous and every fiber of your being was on fire. Sans was slumping, arm falling to his side as the tears fell and the transfer student stepped closer to him.

To hell with it.

You quickened your advance, your shoes squeaking against the floor and the transfer student must of heard your approached because they whipped around to face you.

"Yo-"

**_CRACK!_ **

The bat fully connected with their head, the sickening sound ringing throughout the hall. You didn't have time to think about it as Sans looked at you in shock.

"Run!" you yelled, taking off and grabbing his arm, bring him along with you.

You didn't make it very far before you heard a scream from behind you.

"A̸̦͉̒͛͝H̸͉̦̓̈́̾Ḧ̸̦̦̻́̔͝H̴̪͕̐̽͊H̵͍͎̼̐͌͌H̵͚̟͕͛̒͠█̡█░H̴̺̼̻̾̕̕H̵͖̻͕͐͒█▬̪̘̠H̴͚̙͚̾͊H̴̞̠͉̾̓̐H̴͔͍̘̒̚H̴͚͓̪̓̕H̴▟Ḧ̴͖̫́͐Ḧ̸͔̘͍́͝!"

Christ, they were still alive!?

The two of you fled quickly to the staircase, the adrenaline the only thing keeping you from not falling flat on your face as you went down. But... you could tell you were faltering.

You didn't really know where to go.. or where you could go. You just had to.. get away. 

Get away from.. this. All of this. You both managed to make it to the first floor, slightly stumbling down the stairs before continuing down the hall, still holding tightly onto Sans' arm. As you rounded another corner you felt him sharply pull you and you gasped, mind spinning as you were pulled into a closet and he shut the door behind you both.

"A̵͕̺͕̒͑͝@̵͍͍̞̐͠@̸̵̟̟̘͕̔͑̔̓͝█░█░ ██##!!!"

It was distant but there was no doubt in your mind that it came from the same floor that you two were on. How did they get ahead!?

Sans said your name sharply and you jerked, staring at him in the dark. He had a horrified look on his face and you heard how strained your breathing had become. The bat you were holding landed with a clang on the ground as your legs were giving out , and you felt yourself lean against the wall and slid down. 

"no. no no no ah, you're-" he choked, holding on to you so you didn't fall.

It hurt so badly you wanted to cry but the lightly illuminated blue tears that fell down your friends face kept you from doing so. He placed a hand to your wound whispering 'please' over and over again, shaking.

"Sans," you said, your voice raspy and jagged. He looked to you, shaking his head.

"please, don't! you can't!" he sobbed and you reached out to put a hand on his cheek again for the second time today. "why!? why is it when i need my magic to work it won't!? why did this.. why did we.."

He was hysterical. You were too as you felt the tears gather in your eyes. You hated seeing him like this.

"what did we do to deserve this..?"

Nothing. There was nothing in the world the two of you could have done to justify this. 

"this.. this is.. this is all my fau-"

"Don't."

Your voice was firm but tender. He trembled, placing his free hand over yours, relishing in your touch.

"please.. you can't die on me. i..i can't do this anymore..if you go.. i.."

"I won't."

You're not really sure where all this determination came from but it burned inside you like a fire that refused to be put out. Even if you were just left a small little cinder of life left you wanted to hang on. For your friends. For him. He squeezed your hand tightly before looking around, surrounded by a few boxes. Sans almost seemed reluctant to get up, like you might die if he stopped holding on to you, but you did you best to smile.

"I promise."

He heaved out a shaky sigh before standing, your hand slipping from his face as you applied it back to your wound. The bleeding had stopped on its own for the most part, but you had lost a lot. You really weren't sure how long you'd last but you would keep pushing forward. Closing your eyes you concentrated on taking even breaths as you heard Sans trying to search for something in the darkness. The two of you must of been close by the nurses office because he quickly found some gauze and bandaging to apply to your wound. You carefully lifted up your blood soaked blouse and did your best to sit up, grunting and gasping in pain.

"I.." you hesitated before letting a small sigh as he attended to your wound. "I heard a bit of what they said. I really don't understand Sans, what is-"

"sweetheart," he mumbled. You were caught off guard by the nickname again. "it's probably best to not talk so much with your wound, so just.. let me.."

Silence fell between you two again. You watched as Sans did his best to both tend to you and put his thoughts in order in this dark and dust closet, and it felt like an eternity before he spoke again.

"i don't know when i started to realize it," he began, his tone uneven. Unsure. Like he still didn't believe his own words. "it was just like one day i woke up and i felt like i had the strangest case of deja vu."

"our break was over.. i got up like usual, knocked on paps door to get him up and headed over to your place. we went over your speech and i had this.. nagging feeling in the back of my skull we had been there before. i tried to brush it off but the more i listened to you talk about your speech more i realized i already knew what you were gonna say next. the same stuff would come outta my mouth too. it.. continued to happen. for weeks.. thought i was just freaking out over nothing until the spring festival. things went by rather normally and when the next day came, we.. went back."

"Back..?"

"to today.. the day the.. transfer student came. every time. every time the day after the spring flower festival we came.. back."

A realization was starting to set into you. It was.. haunting. If this really was a game, then they were loading a save or something right? You were.. repeating. The same few weeks, over and over again.. It sounded made up, like a joke or something... nut you didn't hesitate to believe Sans for even a moment. The look on his skull was enough, not to mention the sadness that lurked in his expression. Tired. Disheartened. He looked even worse than he had looked this morning. Hearing about all of this from his and not remembering anything of it made you feel sick, but.. to have experienced just like Sans had? 

..You actually don't know what you would've done.

"they were the only thing that changed at first. every day on this day they'd changed where they would sit. it.. didn't make any sense in the beginning because our class was full," he mumbled and the thoughts from earlier came circling back to you. So you weren't really imagining it... Your class had been full?

"it was then that i realized that people were going missing and no one even seemed to care. it's like they just disappeared into thin air. i got.. scared. i didn't know what to do because i felt like we were on this track that we couldn't get off of, no matter how hard i tried. it felt like my mind and my body were disconnected, i could never talk about it no matter how much i wanted to. i'd just be saying things in response to conversations i heard over and over again."

"Like a script," you muttered and he simply nodded.

"yeah, like all of us were performing in the worlds most fucked up play," he said, letting out a laugh but it was completely hollow. "heh... i thought everything would be okay thought because you and i would.. always get the same ending. everyone else in the student council would be okay too. we'd all be enjoying the spring festival together, laughing and happy.. even if it was the same days repeating i felt okay with it ..but the more it went on the more fearful i got."

"more and more people went missing. the weeks went faster and faster and things got weirder and weirder. like the world was.. glitching. sometimes people would be having conversations with themselves when the person they were suppose to talking to went missing. days would skip. and then people started turning on each other, best friends became worst enemies, people started becoming cruel. it was like everyone was going crazy."

He scooted a bit closer to you, having finished applying some dressing over your wound and now began wrapping the gauze over your abdomen. His tone was breathy and almost indifferent as he recounted everything. He must have went numb at some point to it all, seeing it over and over again. You.. almost felt ashamed. Here was your best friend, experiencing what must of been hell again and again and again and you never noticed? What kind of best friend were you..?

"things.. changed though," he said and your brows furrowed. 

He finished wrapping and you carefully pulled your shirt back down, letting your back rest against the wall as you looked at him. Sans stayed close, your legs touching and you were tempted to bring him closer to you, wanting to comfort him in some way. You were covered in your own blood though but he didn't seem to care as he placed a hand over yours.

"i think they must of started on our route... or i guess it would technically be mine... i woke up again on this day and suddenly didn't feel the same pull i always did. i stayed in bed. i didn't get paps up, i didn't head over to your place, we didn't go to school together. it was the first time that i felt like i had a choice."

"..And you chose to stay in bed?" Maybe it's wasn't the best time to jab at him like this (you were technically suppose to be keeping quiet but you just couldn't help yourself). ..It made him smile though.

"i know," he chuckled. "leave it to me right? the worlds going nuts and i decided to just hide underneath my covers."

"I can't say I blame you for it," you huffed.

"good, because i don't regret it. when i stayed in i kept thinking of what to do about everything. i was scared that whatever this transfer student was doing would get to us. it.. consumed my whole head space. i just kept thinking and thinking and thinking until.. well..."

Sans held out his other hand for a moment and you looked at him a little perplexed. You heard a small pinging noise as a pop-up appeared before him. 

"What the.." you said, taking a look at it. It looked like a menu that would pop up when searching for files on a computer. It only had one file in it though, titled ' _Season of Love_ '.

..What a stupid name.

"i don't know why it appeared all of the sudden but.. for some reason i could bring up this window. i thought that i finally lost it until i realized i could interact with it so.. i began snooping around and found all kinds of things like save files, assets for what seemed like a video game and character folders. for you.. for me.. for everyone. it... really rattled me. i didn't really know what to do with it until i watched a character file get deleted right in front of me."

"...Who?" you asked hesitantly, almost afraid of the answer.

"amelia," he answered, and your eyes slowly went wide. It took a few moments, but something clicked in your head and you felt that slightly sharp pain return.

"She.. sat next to me," you muttered. The seat that the transfer student took today. That had belonged to Amelia. Sans actually looked rather surprised but he nodded.

"watching it just.. disappear like that really lit a fire under my coccyx. i didn't know what i was doing but i had to do something, so i tampered with my own file a bit before i realized i could lock it as an administrator. so i did.. with yours.. and with petey's, april's and vette's..."

 _But I couldn't delete you._

Ah. 

The transfer student couldn't delete you because... Sans had protected you. 

"i couldn't do much because i was too nervous i'd mess something up, and sometimes it kicks me out," he glanced down to the window in front of his hand that lit up the dark closet just a little bit. "but i felt safer knowing that i might've done something to keep everyone from just disappearing."

"...Thank you Sans," you said. He just simply shook his head.

"i don't know if you should thank me really," he said, his shoulders slumping a bit. "because of that things went from bad to... this.."

He didn't need to finish. You really didn't want him to anyways. 

"It's not like you could've known things would be this way Sans," you said softly. "You wanted to protect us. I'm.. glad to be by your side right now."

The stab wounds you could've done without but.. you'd take a thousand of them to protect him.

"i should've seen it coming though. i wasn't the only one who changed that day."

You let out a small scoff.

"The transfer student?"

"no.. you did." 

You paused and felt the bewilderment cross your features before you could even think of a response.

"you texted me.. which was different. you wondered where i was and if i was okay. i thought you would've been like everyone else and kept going despite the fact that i wasn't actually there.. but you didn't. and we chatted. i.. almost didn't know what to do with myself because in my snooping.. i had realized that there actually wasn't any physical data of a date before today. all of our memories and thought and feelings for each other were written into our code. nothing of what happened before today ever actually happened.."

You felt your heart twist so tightly in your chest it was almost more painful than the actual physical wounds on your body.

"That's.."

A part of you wanted to rebuttal that statement but all of this talk of saves and games and files were.. beyond you already. 

".. i know.." he said softly, carefully reaching out and taking a few strands of your hair between his fingers. "i.. sat on that thought for a long time. but no matter how much i acknowledged that fact and dwelled on it, it didn't change the way i felt about you. in that moment my best friend was texting me and was asking if i was alright. it was like i had actually been seen by someone and... it felt like the first time we actually _really_ spoke to each other."

The fact that you couldn't quite remember it made you a little upset but.. there was also a kind of warmth to his tone that made your painful heart untwist, just a bit.

"things played out differently after that. every time i did something you would always react to it. every day was slightly changing. i almost couldn't believe it.. like we were breaking free of whatever was going on, but there were events that we just couldn't escape. you would always go to school today, with or without me. you'd always get a headache and go to the nurses office. if i was there, the transfer student would try to use it an excuse to talk to me when i came back from taking you to the nurse. if i wasn't there, xavier would be the one who took you and you'd end up talking with him."

"Xavier?" you asked, almost astonished. The fact that you and the school delinquent would strike up a conversation after how much he made it a point that he didn't like you and your candid attitude was.. unbelievable quite frankly. He hated your presidential guts and you weren't exactly his biggest fan either.

"i think whenever the transfer student chooses someone to pursue, their rival falls for someone else," he mumbled.

So you would fall for Xavier?

..Wait. 

"Rival?" you asked, casting him a glance. He fell quiet, his eyelights drifting to the closet door. You pursed your lips a bit, but couldn't help the almost teasing smile that fell on your face.

"I'm.. the rival for your route?"

The dusting of blue magic on his face lit up the space between you two a little more. 

..There was no question in your mind that you love this skeleton. You had for a very long time.. or at least that was what your heart told you. Being with him here, right now in this moment, and even after hearing all of this.. didn't change anything at all.

"So the ending we always got.. we would be.. together."

That blush was traveling down his neck between his joints, where the magic connected his bones, making his chest light up a bit underneath that sloppily buttoned shirt. 

"..ah, that's.. well.."

You giggled. You just couldn't help yourself really, even if it hurt your stomach. You were really happy. The more you listened to Sans, the more a fog seemed to be lifted from your mind. That dream from this morning... Perhaps it was more than a dream?

"Even after going down our route so many times, did it really not get any easier to confess?" you asked playfully, looking at his flushing form.

"no," he said, letting go of your hair to rub the back of his neck, still not quite looking at you. "because every time we went down this route i kept finding new ways to fall in love with you."

  


That......

  


....Ahaha.

  


That was...

  


..If you were made of magic you would probably be lighting up right now too... 

It just wasn't fair. The honesty, the love.. the completely tender way he had said it. Damn this cute skeleton! How were you suppose to fight that? ..Well, fighting fire with fire seemed fair, so you also spoke your honest truth.

"I love you too, Sans." 

He turned back to look at you with a wink and a sheepish smile.

"i know."

..This smug asshole.

"..I take it back," you said crossing your arms and glaring at him.

"ah, too late. what's said has been said. no take backs," he hummed and you let out a huff. "gotta say that's a record for you trying to retract that though."

"Gee I wonder why... jerk," you muttered and he laughed.

As embarrassing as it was to confess what was technically years of restrained feelings so easily, it felt.. natural. Like you had done it before. And now knowing what you knew, you probably had.

_He still chose you._

Even though you had been on the receiving end of a stabbing after having that said to you, you couldn't help but be just a bit smug about it. That despite this games' coding, that despite them getting a 'perfect score' to win him over and meet his standards.. that despite everything.. he always chose you.

"Never got aboard the Xavier train did I?" you asked.

That got another laugh out of Sans. 

"yeah, hell no."

Oh thank the stars.

"every time it seemed like the conversation went how it was suppose.. or however it was scripted to go you would complain about him to me. it caused a lot of bugs with the dialogue and events, which was actually pretty funny to watch everything fall apart. even though you were technically suppose to be hanging out with him we would be together somewhere and he would talk about you as if you were his girlfriend. you even punched him once for it. i.. uh.." he trailed off a bit, his smile dying down to something softer. The familiar sound of bones scraping together filled his pause as he twiddled his thumbs a bit.

"i know that i went of of my way to be with you every time, but i had at least a faint idea of what was kinda going on. the fact that you would always forget every time we reset hurt but.. no matter what you always tried to be with me too. that alone kept me going. kept make me want to break out of this cycle. of this game."

..You were glad in a way. Of course you wished that you could've remembered everything like Sans did (you couldn't even begin to imagine what it would of been like had you been in opposite positions right now) but the fact that some part of you held on to your feelings made them seem much more.. real. Much more your own. Not something that someone just wrote up or stuck inside you.

Still. 

"i got so close too.."

Your head turned to the side a bit, silently asking him to continue. 

He sighed, shoulders slumping a bit as he looked towards the menu that still flickered before him. 

"i managed to remove the them from the game," he admitted.

"Y-you did?" you asked, glancing from him to the pop-up. It now seemed much more ominous than before, if that were even possible.

"mhm. we.. got so far. during our route the transfer student would always get frustrated and restart the week before we even got anywhere because things wouldn't always go quite as scripted. that time i got rid of them we actually made it all the way to the festival. i.. really thought that we broke free. but.."

Here you were. 

Back to today. Sans' mutterings from earlier when he took you to the nurses office now made a bit of sense as well as his disheveled appearance. What an agonizing reality it must of been to wake up after finally thinking you were free and being back here. ..Stars above did you want to just hold this skeleton.

"They came back," you said, finishing his thought.

"because i didn't delete them," he added. "i should've. it was just.. terrifying. even if they weren't doing good things i didn't feel like i had the right to just get rid of someone. it felt like killing them.. so i just ..moved them somewhere else and locked the save file." 

"So they couldn't access it or delete it," you murmured. "So then, how did they manage to restart?"

"the flower festival is the end. just like how there isn't any data before today.. there isn't anything after the festival except a small epilogue of the next day. i think they were able to get in because it actually finished.. we ended up back here and they came back. and now.. i'm not sure i have the option to delete them anymore."

That... wasn't good.

"You're not sure?" you parroted, a small sense of dread to the words.

"tried, when i could. they really suspected something was going on, but i think they believed it was you who was messing up. you were causing the game to bug before and then they couldn't get into their own save file. normally you just had a headache on this days but you definitely seemed worse today."

Ah. 

Good to know that the insurmountable pain you experienced in class was _also_ their fault.

"i think they locked themselves like i locked everyone else. i keep trying to break in but i still don't really know enough about this whole thing to do it. didn't have enough time to figure it all out because i can't bring out the menu when i'm stuck in 'events'. they tried getting to you but i think they're also stuck on a bit of a track. you can't go to the nurses office on certain parts of the day. even when i tried to stay it took me back to class."

So that's why he said he didn't want to go.

"they tried getting to you and... everyone in the council else kept preventing them from doing so. i think it was part of their code to get in their way and protect you because one thing you can do is make a rival look bad to their friends."

"..So they.." ...It hurt. It hurt a lot. ...To think about. ..To acknowledge. That.. your friends tried to protect you in some capacity from this entity. You kept your eye on the pop-up as it flickered and fizzled. "Is there no way to.."

Watching Sans' expression fall told you just about everything you needed to know.

"i think they've hacked something in. you aren't.. suppose to be able to hurt anyone, not like how they are. their files became corrupted. i just get this error message whenever i tried to open one of theirs." 

You watched as he carefully reached out and touched the _Seasons of Love_ file. It lit up for a moment before two more files opened up labeled 'boot' and then 'game'. Another tap onto 'game' and a whole list of files popped up. Sans clearly had no trouble navigating it, a testament to how much time he must have spent with it. Soon enough you were in another folder labeled 'characters'. There were.. hardly any.

Did they delete everyone?

Yours was there. As was Sans'. Both of yours had a little golden lock right on top of the file icon.

There was another. ▟▛m̵͔͇̼̿̈́̒░t̵̟͓̺͛͘a̴̫͉̪͛͑̐!̵̙̻̒̒̈́░▀!̵̡̙̻̒̒̈́ ▀@̵̙̙̼͋̐̓#̵̢̟͉͐͐͑▀. Wow it hurt your eyes even looking at it. Theirs was decorated with a black lock.

And.. the council members. All of them had little golden locks right on top of their character files. You watched as Sans tapped on to Peter's and another small pop-up appeared.

'The file is corrupt and cannot be opened.'

...

Having your hopes crushed like that was painful. It just reinstated the fact that your friends were gone.. and not coming back. 

"We can't reset this can we?" you questioned quietly. Sans looked at you with a rather sullen expression. It felt harsh to even suggest it, but your friends didn't deserve this kind of fate. No one did.

"i don't really know what that would do. whenever others got deleted they would be gone for good, even when the transfer student loaded the week back up. they may still be corrupted if we do and truth be told.. i don't even know if we can."

It grew quiet. 

There was.. an understanding of your position now.

You both were trapped. Here. In a 'game' turned into a nightmare with someone you couldn't get rid of. Not to mention you were bleeding out slowly. If you did die your file would become corrupted and there was no way to bring you back, leaving Sans here alone with some sub-grade piece of shit who wanted to win him over so badly they killed your friends over it.

It didn't matter if you were just characters in a game for their own amusement. 

They hurt them. 

They justified their own goals worth hurting someone over, and that was enough to convince you that you wanted to see that scumbag burn in hell. And now add in the fact that they hurt you? Your fellow council members? The people you loved and cared about?

You were going to make hell feel a lot more like heaven when you got done with them.

"Do you think you can keep trying to delete them?" you asked. Sans looked uncertain.

"i.. let them know that i was the one doing things when they confronted me earlier. i was trying to use it as leverage to get them to tell me where you were because i was stuck in that event with them and i had already seen what they did to.." he didn't really finish again but he didn't need to. His eyelights wandered to the strangely labeled file. "i'm not exactly sure what they'll do if they find out i'm messing with it."

"..It's a wonder they haven't just deleted this whole game," you muttered, looking at the state of it. You weren't really into games yourself, but to purposely delete characters and hack in things to help you reach some kind of ending faster.. was that even worth it at that point? Wasn't a part of the enjoyment in the journey? You didn't want to bother your brain with trying to figure out this things sense of morality about a video game. 

"i thought about that too. i guess i should be glad. just thinking about the fact that 'we' as ourselves now may not survive a total wipe is kinda scary. it's why i tried to just go along with things as much as i could without seeming suspicious, or else they may just try to restart the whole game completely. then we'd just be replaced with another version of ourselves.. or maybe it'll just still be us with no memory," his voice trailed in thought, almost sounding like he was hypothesizing more than actually realizing the implications of that statement.

"I don't think I need to add anymore existentialism to this shit pile by thinking about other versions of us," you say exasperated. 

"fair," he said with a shrug, touching on the transfer student's file.

'Unauthorized access to this file.'

"guess we should spend our time thinking of something else," he grumbled, tapping a finger to his chin. He reached out again and another little pop-up appeared, a completely black screen with what looked like a digital keyboard toward the bottom. He carefully began typing some code into the black box and you in your infinite knowledge of computers and code could read absolutely none of it.

He.. really had spent a lot of time with this huh? Your poor head was already filled with so many thoughts; games, timelines, routes, deletion as well as the terrible migraine that transfer student had so kindly bestowed to you. It was a lot to grasp. Sans had been grappling with it for quite some time now, watching him work was proof enough of that. He used his one hand to type on the keyboard and the other he moved from resting on the top of your hand to actually holding it.

You suppose you couldn't really deny him after such a heart and soulfelt confession in a supply closet, no matter how gross the dried blood on your hands were. So you let him hold your hand without complaints.. not that you really wanted to complain anyway. 

You always liked how his bones felt. They were thicker than human ones, his hands being roughly the same size as yours despite the fact he lacked skin and they were rather cool to the touch. His magic left behind the same chill in the air when he used it. It was comforting.. now in the peaceful silence that befell you two. 

You found your eyes drifting shut as you attempted to finally rest a bit, the feeling of Sans' thumb stroking the back of your hand kept you grounded and not fading to the darkness that crept at the edge of your mind. Your head hurt considerably less but you still ached all over, the stab wound burning into the forefront of your mind.

It was just you and him and the quiet clicking of his typing.

"Sorry I can't be of much help," you sighed, guilt still treading your mind. You really did feel a little useless right now.

"you being here is more than enough," he replied. It almost sounded hopeful, in a way. Definitely made you feel better. "besides, seeing you take a whack at that anomaly was much more satisfying that i thought."

Truth be told you did get a pretty good swing in. Shame it wasn't enough to be rid of it though.... If only things could've been so easy. It was quiet for some time as you regained some energy, battling away the sleepiness and existential despair boggling your mind. There were just a few quiet huffs and grumbles from Sans every once in awhile as he typed. Occasionally you squeezed his hand in encouragement, enjoying this small moment of calmness.

Until Sans let out a small gasp.

Your eyes opened to the darkness, that window pop-up lighting his face as his browbones furrowed in concern. 

"What?" you asked, almost regretting it while watching his expression change to horror.

"..they're deleting things."

Oh... That wasn't good was it. 

"Things?" you asked. 

"places."

Oh great. Even worse.

They must of known Sans would see this happening now that they knew he was the one tampering with files.

"They're trying to get us out of our hiding hole," you murmured, doing your best to sit up. Having to finally get the chance to rest, your body screamed to stay put but that probably wasn't going to be the case here. You weren't about to be a sitting duck for this thing to find you.

"they started with smaller outer areas. they must've thought we teleported somewhere or maybe they're just taking away places to run," he said to himself mostly. You remembered now what he said earlier to you, about his magic not working.

"Can you really not use your magic to shortcut us anywhere?" you asked, and he let out a small sound of annoyance.

"..no. if it's not used in the context of the script i can't. i can't teleport. i can't heal your wounds. i can't even summon forth a projectile. i don't understand why..i-"

He froze, eyesockets going wide.

"that's the.." Another tense pause. "they're deleting parts of the school now."

You.. didn't have time to think about this did you. 

Click.

Click.

Click.

_Ping!_

Ah. 

That sound.... That wasn't Sans hitting his keyboard.

No. They couldn't of. Right?

Click.

Click.

Click.

_Ping!_

It was getting close. Your body froze for a moment and you inhaled a quick breath, forcing yourself up.

You kept low, moving quickly into a crouch despite the painful flare in your abdomen, letting go of Sans' hand and putting him behind you as you faced the door.

"what the hell are yo- do you really think you can take them on like this?!" his tone was hushed but laced with worry and urgency. "they.. they're going to-"

"Do you remember what I promised you?" you asked, surprising yourself with the calmness of your tone.

He hesitated replying. You felt him shift behind you softly, but you kept your eyes glued to the closet door.

Click.

Click.

Click.

_Ping!_

"yes," his tone came out even more hushed.

"I would never let my VP down. He means the world to me," you whispered as you felt him gently place his forehead against the back of your shoulder.

"i know." 

His hand brushed against yours as he handed you the bat, you gripped it tightly before letting out a few controlled breaths. He moved his head back and you gathered what energy you could.

"I'll be right behind you. Buy you whatever time you need to do something. Anything. I know you can do this Sans. I believe in you."

Click.

Click.

Click.

_Ping!_

"Come out, come out wherever you are~!" the voice sang from right outside the door.

..Looks like it was time for round three. 

The door handle clicked and slowly creaked open, almost dramatically, but... you were over this. 

Over the games. 

Over them. 

You leapt forward, ramming into the door with your shoulder earning you a shout of surprise. They stumbled back. Thanks to your crouching position you missed a wild swing of their knife as you bounded forward and tackled them. With the adrenaline flowing through your veins you managed to taken enough steps to slam them into the wall. They howled. You heard Sans take off behind you, his sneakers squeaking as he took a sharp turn into the hall.

You were mainly running on instinct as you let go of them and backed off, trying to give yourself some space as they staggered from their blow against the wall. Their distorted features were beyond any kind of recognition now that their neck was bent at a gruesome angle. No blood anywhere in sight though except on their hands.

"One home run ain't enough for you?" you sneered and they screeched inhumanly.

"I'll f̸͖͕̻̒̔͐u̴̘͕͖̾͋͝@̸̪̦̺͆̈́̾#̵̔▛̢͉͌̔i̵͍͖̠̐̽͝n̸̻͎͙̽̈́͝g̸̢͉͔̾͝ kill you!" 

Too bad they'd have to catch you first. 

If there was one thing you knew about Sans it was that he was a slippery bastard, but five and half years of friendship gave you _just_ enough experience to keep up. 

You ran, darting after him and you heard the transfer student scramble to keep pace. You could see up ahead as Sans rounded the corner of the hall, the sound of clicking heels not too far behind you. Hopefully he could get far enough ahead to be able to do something. You'd... more than likely have to buy some more time. There was still the hesitation in your heart that you could do much of anything at this point in your current state. Sure you were sturdy, but the pain was starting to become too much. Sans had taken the time to explain everything and.. it was costing you now. The transfer student's file was protected and you doubt that you could make another get away like before, but you still clung on to what hope you had left. You kept pushing your body well beyond it's means and it was becoming more and more apparent every step you took that this just couldn't last.

You probably should of died when you hit the bottom of those stairs. And again when you made it to the council room. And again when you attacked the transfer student to get to Sans. Hell, you probably should of finally just finished bleeding out in that closet. 

You just.. couldn't.

Because you believed in Sans. ...And you loved him ...So... so much.. He had suffered through this enough. More than anyone he deserved to be free of this pain. Of this beast staggering behind you.

And he trusts you. 

You promised him...

..to kick the ass of whoever was harassing him. 

...And you always made good on your promises.

As you turned the same corner Sans did, you paused, spinning quickly on your heel. Hearing footsteps, you swung the bat, making a clean connection to their stomach. They bellowed, hardly needing a moment to recover as they swung their knife towards you again. Their moves were getting sloppier you noticed, the knife making a whizzing sound as it missed your face.

You took a few steps back to gain some distance again and they lurched, slumping but still managing to stand.

"I hate you," they spat.

You rolled your eyes.

"Yeah get in line," you scoffed, twirling your bat once as you took a much more stable stance than they did. "Or better yet how about you choke on it like the sad little miserable piece of shit you are and just disappear."

"AAA͕█░A̸̺̦͇̔͐͛A̵̺̞͑͌̈́A̵͖͍̠̐̚A██AA!@@!!"

Another demented howl. Looks like the time for pleasant conversation was over.

They charged and swung. You step back and felt another rush of air and the sharp zip of the knife whistled in your ears. The setting sun was placing a golden hue into the hall. Doors to classrooms where now hollow black voids into nothingness, escape routes thwarted by their deletion of this world. They were twitching and babbling something you couldn't understand anymore. You didn't care. You kept your breathing as even as possible, the fire in your stomach no match for the one in your soul. They closed the gap between you and swung again, this time aiming high. It was pretty obvious they were aiming for your face or maybe even your neck, so you ducked. You found reliable footing and placed a hand on the floor, kicking out your leg to knock them down. 

They fell with a heavy thud and you pushed yourself off the floor and ran again.

Left at the next hall. Further down and then to the right.

You knew exactly where Sans was headed. He was gone already, miles ahead of the two of you but you felt it in your soul that going this way would lead you to him. Not much farther now. The sound of the transfer student still behind you made you keep pushing forward, your heavy steps and breathing the only thing filling the howls besides their hysterical screams. You turned the last corner and saw your destination. A pair of double doors leading out to the courtyard at the end of the hall.

Your vision was blurring and your breathing strenuous but you had to keep going. 

You just wanted to see him. To help him. To get him out of this nightmare.

You barreled past the double doors to the courtyard, the cooling spring air hitting you as you gasped and heaved. He was in the distance, you could see him standing towards the center of the small plaza where students use to eat their lunch. There were glitches in the distance. Black and endless that threatened to swallow you whole.. where things just ceased to exist. The school.. It was nothing more than a mess of glitching graphics and expansions of nothingness.

You ran. Down the stairs into the plaza, avoiding those graphical errors, so close to him yet so far.

Click.

Click.

Click. 

Right behind you.

...

This bastard.

You turned, the knife made a sharp clang as you deflected it with your bat and another swing that quickly whipped by you. The sound of the knife slicing the air near by shouldn't be as familiar as it was by now. 

"Why don't you just **GIVE UP**!" you voice raised, a rage consuming you as you managed to put distance between you and your assailant once more, facing them head on.

"Ahh. Ahaha. AH̸̺̼͎̒͆͝A̴̙̪͉͋̿̕HA▚H̸̺̼͎̒͆͝A. I should be asking that! You! You've been doing nothing but getting in my way this entire time. You're just data!" they shouted, speech partially garbled. They dashed at you again.

_**CLANG.** _

"Useless!"

_**CLANG.** _

"You don't mean anything! None of you mean anything! Not you. Not those idiots who tried to protect you."

_**CLANG.** _

"Not A̵̙͉̻̾̒͛N̴̠͉͍̾͠Y̵̝̺͕͛̓▒O█N▄E!!"

_**CLANG.** _

Their blade bounced off your bat for a fourth time. Your arms were giving in. Their swings were irrational but powerful, enough to leave dents in the metal. They were sloppy but flailing the damn blood soaked knife so quickly now you weren't sure you could dodge much of anything they were throwing at you, just deflect it. You could hold your ground but.. this was swiftly becoming battle of endurance you were losing.

Even so.

They said that you didn't mean anything. That your friends didn't mean anything. 

That was ...unforgivable.

Even if.. even if it was just coding. Even if any of it wasn't real. 

You loved them. 

With every fiber of your being. 

Those cherished memories of you friends, your family.. Warm summer days of eating ice cream and doing summer homework. Overseas trips with your mom and dad. Late night five way phone calls and pillow forts and stories about love and confessions. Your guys dreams. Your hopes for the future. Your promise that no matter how far you went for college or in life, you'd always be friends.

Those memories were yours.

Your most precious treasures.

You wouldn't let them trample all over it. Real or not.

"You.." you said, the venom seeping so far into your voice you hardly recognized yourself. You were shaking. Tears clouded your vision as you hatefully glared at the transfer student. " **YOU DON'T GET TO DECIDE THAT!** "

_**CRACK!** _

...

Another home run.

The knife clattered on to the floor and they stumbled, edges of their form blurring just like their face. Your breath was heavy and you shuddered, watching as they twitched and turned. They just.. wouldn't let up.

"I'll d̵͔͔͉̈́͌͌e̵̟̝͕̿̈́͋l̴̪̻̘̓͌͘e̵͍̻̿͛͐͜t̸͔͖͌̈́͜e̴̫͚̪̔̒͘ you. I'll █░░ █ you. I'll wipe your S̵̪͖͙͐̓͑T̸̪͖͙̾̕͠Ǘ̵̢̡̺̈́P̵͕͖̠̓͛̓I̵̡̺͖̽̒̐D̴͎͉̻̔͛͘ ǝɔuǝʇsᴉxǝ from EVERYTHING!" they screamed and you narrowed your eyes, letting out a few huffs, a chilling air filling your lungs. Just keep holding on. Just keep holding on. Just keep holding-!

"well now doesn't that just sound like a hell of an idea."

Sans' voice shocked you a bit, coming from behind. You felt his hand on your back, keeping you steady as the cool air around you got colder. You hadn't even realized you had been rocking back and forth after slamming your bat into their head again, but he supported you as you leaned into him. His other arm was outstretched towards the transfer student.

"hope ya don't mind if i take it," his tone was malicious and you watched as the transfer student wobbled back.

"Y-y-you ca- A̴̝̻̺͐̓u̸̡̓͋̿͜Gh🅷🅷."

They froze. 

There was a faint light emitting from their chest. 

Their soul..? Or at least something resembling it.. it blurred and scribbled out just like the rest of them... but...

It was blue. 

They.. couldn't move.

"A̸"͎͙͙̈́͠H̴̦͇̻̿͝H̸͍̻̾͛̾██Ä̴̪̙́͋H̵͍̞̝͋̕͝H̵̺̠̘͆͌░@#"

More garble.

"You.." said softly, but let out a cough instead, your body shakily gasping in air. Sans shushed you softly, standing closer to your side.

"i.. stopped them. i think," his voice strained a bit as you watched a few drops of sweat fall from his skull. "every time on this day i use my magic in the courtyard. i thought i could tamper with it a bit.. and steal that file that lets me use it."

He did. The way his left eye shone a shimmering yellow to blue let you know he did. The blue magic in their soul stopped them in their tracks, their form shifting and twitching, pixels dotting them here and there but no noise came out.

"i guess i should thank you," he said, the casualness of his tone was as every bit as deadly as the hatred that seemed to lace his words as he address the transfer student. "you came up with a pretty interesting idea. realized it when you started deleting places. anything caught up in the area gets deleted right along with it, huh? no matter what?"

"N̴̫͚͕̽̈́̕██ $@̴͓̺̾̓͜#██ ."

"lucky for us you were just trying to get us out in the open and not actually delete us... but you had the **n e r v e** to take out the council room along with everyone in it."

That.. they.. no.. Even though Sans locked their files they were..? Gone?

"█░pl-eas▄▀▀▀."

"a little late for begging isn't it?" his voice was harsh, almost mockingly.

"the school's files are split into two. east and west... i wonder where that cut off is exactly?"

You felt Sans lead you back, still keeping your eyes on the transfer students hissing and groaning form. One step. Two. Then three.

The two of you passed the middle of the courtyard, the transfer student still glitching in the distance.

"i'd wish you the best but, someone like you will never be happy so.. **i h o p e y o u r o t.** "

Sans turned his outstretched hand around and snapped.

The world before you was.

And then wasn't.

A dark void laid before you just a few steps away. Hollow. Endless.

No more transfer student. No more eastern wing of school. No more.. Anything.

...

Your legs finally gave out. Thankfully Sans was holding on to you and didn't let you fall on your ass or into that darkened abyss before you as you both slowly slid to the floor. It took a few moments of processing it all before you reached for him. 

"They're.."

"gone," he said, and you wrapped your arms around him and held on. He did the same.

It was quiet as the tears gathered in your eyes and you sobbed, clinging to him like a lifeline. The relief and horror of everything mixing into you as the waves of sadness took over and you cried.

But.. it was over.

And you here. Despite everything..

You were both here.

Sans held on to you tightly. You could feel him shed his own tears into your shoulder as well, both of you coming to terms with your reality. The world around you was in pieces, thin strands barely held together by code and graphics. There was no one else here. Just you and him in a broken digital world.

And you were.. You were...

Fading.

He said your name and you made a noise, throat clogged by the tears and sorrow in your chest. 

Your head was fuzzy. 

He spoke again but...

His voice was becoming muffled.

Sans retracted as you slumped, your head went from resting on his shoulder to his chest. He placed a hand firmly on your face, cradling you now, the familiarity of his cool touch rousing you a bit as he tucked some hair behind your ear but your eyes were failing you. The darkness you had denied for so long was calling to you as you huffed out short and shallow breaths.

But you promised didn't you?

Ah.

Dammit. Not like this.

Not now.

You can't possibly be dying now right? 

No.. this whole time you have been. Dying. Bleed out. Suffering. You knew that with every step you took. Every word you spoke. Every swung you made. You couldn't push it away anymore.

...

Everything was becoming muted. The colors, the sounds, the sights. 

"██████"

BEEP.

It was hard to hear him.

"██████?"

BEEP.

His form was fading.

"██████!!"

Why was everything..?

BEEP.

BEEP.

BEEP.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, i am a liar liar pants on fire. i had hoped to finish up everything in this chapter but all the wonderful comments and kudos left on the last chapter left me feeling a little too inspired to flesh out some more things. so thank you guys very much for your love! y'all are the best. please forgive another cliffhanger but i just couldn't help myself. next chapter will be the epilogue, so please look forward to it! _(:3」∠)_


	3. continue?

Your eyes snapped open as you let out a small gasp, sunlight barely leaking into the room past the curtains. You were sweating, the sheets clinging to your skin as you squinted into the lightly sunlit room. All at once the world came crashing into you, head splitting with the signs of a migraine and a groan came our of your mouth. Ugh. What a wonderful way to start the day. After shuffling around your bed to find your phone and turning off that infernal screeching alarm you took the water bottle on your bedside and took a long chug. 

It was Monday and your week break from school was over. Springtime was here, and so began the spring semester of your final year of high school...

Ah. You were....

You were forgetting something.

What was..

"OH, YOU'RE AWAKE!"

You couldn't help but yelp in surprise, nearly throwing the water bottle in your hands at the sound in an otherwise empty bedroom. Your heart was pounding in your chest, head whipping around as there wasn't anyone around to even say anythin-

"AH, I'M SO SORRY I DIDN'T MEAN TO STARTLE YOU!"

..That voice. It was slightly robotic in tone but a part of you recognized it.

"P..Papyrus?"

It only took you saying his name for everything to slowly register in your head. 

This was...

...

You had.. died. 

...Apparently? 

..Maybe? 

In this moment you felt very much alive. Well.. alive as a video game character could feel, you supposed. But you were here; no longer bloodied, no longer in pain (except for the very small headache and confusion wracking your brain) and no longer at school. 

"HMM! SO IT SEEMED WE ARE ALREADY ACQUAINTED DESPITE THIS TECHNICALLY BEING OUR FIRST MEETING. I SUPPOSE THAT MAKES THINGS A LITTLE EASIER!"

What? 

"..Wait, where are you?" you asked, head turning everywhere in the empty room.

"WHOOPS! MY APOLOGIES, JUST A MOMENT."

_Ping!_

A light shone and in a few moments appeared Papyrus, just as you remembered him.. except all blue and slightly pixelated.

He cleared his nonexistent throat before smilingly warmly at you.

"DESPITE YOU KNOWING WHO I AM I WILL INTRODUCE MYSELF AGAIN. I AM THE GREAT P4PYRU5!" 

You couldn't help the smile that crawled across your features as you returned the gesture and introduced yourself. 

"YES! I AM WELL AWARE WHO YOU ARE. I HAVE BEEN DUTIFULLY INSTRUCTED TO WATCH OVER YOU BY MY BROTHER SO THAT I MAY NOTIFY HIM WHEN YOU WAKE UP!" he said, taking on a rather noble pose with a gloved hand over his chest. "..WHICH JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE THIS VERY MOMENT! I SHALL GO INFORM HIM!"

And you watched as he maintained his majestic pose and just.. phased through the floor.

You were kind of gawking as he left. 

..What in the..

You glanced down at yourself, sitting in a bed in a rather unfamiliar set of pajamas in a familiar room. It was Sans' room, no doubt about that, messy and disorganized as usual. It was quiet, with the sun filtering past some dark curtains and a bunch of clothes and papers strewn everywhere, a trashnado spinning in the corner. A hand floated down to your stomach where your wounds once were, and after carefully lifting up the oversized t-shirt you were wearing ..you found nothing. Just your normal tummy, like nothing had even happened. You didn't really have enough time to inspect it before Papyrus reappeared beside you again, making you jump.

"YOU WILL BE HAPPY TO KNOW THAT I HAVE FULLY INFORMED HIM OF YOUR WELL BEING!"

The hurried footsteps you heard told you that he had indeed been informed of that. The door that had been slightly ajar now swung open as Sans stood out of breath, eyelights frantically searching the room. They landed on you, the worry on his expression turning into such an incredible look of relief as you smiled at him. 

"you're.. ah.. phew.." he panted out, putting a hand to his head as he laughed, tears forming in his sockets. "you're awake.."

"Hi Sans," you said softly, and that was it was all it took for him to join you at his bedside and hug you tightly, which you so easily returned. You felt him shake a little in happiness as he buried his head into your shoulder, tears wetting the t-shirt you wore. You relished in his touch, hugging him just a little closer to you. It was a sweet moment, even as Papyrus let out a loud sniff. 

Your eyes glanced up to him curiously. 

"SORRY, THERE'S JUST.. SOMETHING IN MY EYESOCKET!" he said, turning away from you two slightly with another sniffle. Sans let out a huffy laugh as he pulled away from you.

"thanks for keep an eye on her bro," he said as Papyrus easily pulled himself together and took on yet another noble and composed pose.

"OF COURSE! THAT'S WHAT BROTHERS ARE FOR, ARE THEY NOT?"

You couldn't really argue with that, could you. Still...

"Can I ask what's going on?" you said, holding back a giggle while Sans sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.

"yeah. lotsa stuff happened huh?" he mumbled, as you scooted over to make room for him on the bed. He didn't hesitate taking the the spot next to you as you looked towards his brother, standing valiantly with his hands on his hips. "uh bro, this is-"

"WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN ACQUAINTED," Papyrus said, holding a hand up. "AND WITH HOW MUCH YOU SPOKE OF HER THESE PAST FEW DAYS IT ALREADY FEELS LIKE WE'VE KNOWN EACH OTHER FOR A LIFE TIME!" 

"..right," Sans said, that familiar dusting of blue taking over his face while Papyrus and you snickered. "well uh, sweetheart. this is my bro. i uh, kinda made him."

Oh? That caught you off guard. It would certainly explain his rather usually pixelated appearance and slightly robotic tone, but Papyrus still looked rather proud of that statement.

"after everything you.. ended up passing out. from blood loss i think. scared the shit outta me but you didn't ...die. healing magic wasn't doing anything to help your wounds so i brought us back here to safety. it was one of the only outer areas that actually didn't get deleted," he said, recounting everything. Only one huh? Did that mean your home was gone too..? ...You tried not to think about it.

"i didn't really know what to do but i thought of a way to try and restore your file. i was going through everything like crazy trying to think of a way to help.. your soul kept refusing to let go though.." 

So you.. still held on in the end. Sheesh, you were a stubborn one huh? Probably not news to you or anyone who actually knew you but it was strange to see it in action. Clinging onto this life so desperately because of how badly you wanted to live. Stubbornly wishing to see another day. To be here, right now in this moment. Almost made all the pain and struggle worth it.

Almost.

"it became a little much and i just wanted someone to help talk things out with and keep track of all the information i was learning.. and a little bit of company. paps was just a few voice files in the game attached to mine, he didn't actually have any physical form so.. i took what i remembered of him and compiled it all together," Sans said. His tone was soft and rather exhausted, but they way he looked at his brother was filled with a lot of pride.

"IMPRESSIVE, AM I NOT?" Papyrus asked, flexing a skeletal arm at you. Another giggle found it's way out of you as you nodded.

"Very much so." 

Impressive was putting it lightly. Stars above, Sans managed to actually put a full monster together just using a few voice files and some memories. It was no wonder you were actually alright now. 

"So you managed to restore my file?" you asked, curiosity brimming. The lack of any wounds or pain already told you your answer but you just couldn't help wanting an explanation.

"yeah. it took some finagling but we managed to find a way to retain the memories of the save while basically reverting your form to before you got hurt," he mentioned.

"COMPLETELY AND TOTALLY WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION BY THE WAY," Papyrus added and Sans shot him a glance. "WHAT? IT'S TECHNICALLY A BREECH OF HER PRIVACY!" 

This time you actually let out a snort before waving a hand, trying to diffuse the brothers little stand off.

"It's ok! I don't mind, really," you said, even as Papyrus let out a huff on your behalf. "Besides, Sans knows how much I trust him. If anything I should be thanking you guys. I'm really glad to be here right now. "

You were, truthfully. Having the chance to be here, sitting right besides Sans and now with the new addition of Papyrus, your heart and soul felt warm. 

"WELL THEN YOU ARE VERY WELCOME. I AM GLAD TO SEE MY BROTHER'S BIG FAVORITE BACK IN GOOD SHAPE," the taller skeleton said making you blush a bit at the strange title. Sans too apparently, as he let out a nervous laugh.

"How in the world did you guys pull that off?" you wondered as Sans reached over to grab your phone.

"we did a couple of experiments on this little guy first, seeing if we could restore it to before it was broken while still keeping the messages you got that day. a weird comparison, i know, but it held to the same idea of what we were trying to accomplish," he explained, handing it back to you.

Fixing what was broken while still keeping the contents. Made about as much sense as anything else going on. Sure enough you carefully clicked the screen on and after entering your pass code, the messages were still there. It.. broke your heart a bit to see the old messages of your friends and your parents, but you decided to leave them there for now. 

"IT WAS AN ASTOUNDING SUCCESS!" Papyrus celebrated, before his features fell a bit. "...UNTIL YOU TOOK AWHILE TO WAKE UP, THAT WAS RATHER WORRISOME."

"..How long was I out for?" you asked, turning your attention to Sans. 

"it took about a day and a half of work messing with the phone before we could restore you. it's been about three-ish days since then," he mentioned, giving you a small once over. 

"TIME HAS BEEN MOVING A LITTLE STRANGELY SINCE THAT ..'PERSON' HAS BEEN REMOVED," Papyrus added, even giving little air quotes with his gloved hands and looking a little miffed at the mention of them. "WE'RE NOT COMPLETELY ON A TWENTY-FOUR HOUR CYCLE EVERY DAY BUT IT HAS BEEN QUITE AWHILE. WE HYPOTHESIZED IT MAY TAKE A SPELL FOR THE RESTORATION TO BE COMPLETED BUT YOU CERTAINLY TOOK YOUR TIME."

"Can you blame me?" you asked, raising an eyebrow dramatically. "I got stabbed by that so called 'person'. Twice."

"BOTH FAIR AND VALID. I CANNOT REPRIMAND YOU FOR THAT," Papyrus said, crossing his arms.

"..nothing feels wrong?" Sans asked cautiously, placing a hand on your arm and you nodded.

"Nope. I feel just fine. A little head pain but I think it's going away," you said reassuringly. He seemed to relax a bit more, all the stress fading from his shoulders.

"WELL PLEASE KEEP US INFORMED IF YOU FEEL ANYTHING STRANGE," Papyrus added, taking a knee by the bedside, also seeming to check on your physical well being. These guys were so sweet. "I HAVE MADE IT MY PERSONAL MISSION TO KEEP YOU OUT OF HARM'S WAY; ONE, BECAUSE I AM ENJOYING YOUR PRESENCE GREATLY ALREADY AND TWO, BECAUSE I DO NOT THINK I CAN TAKE ANYMORE OF SANS' MOPING!"

"ouch bro," Sans said not sounding the least bit offended. Aww. Well to be fair you'd probably have moped around too if anything like this had been done to Sans, so you decide not to tease him too much. 

"Thank you Papyrus," you added, also greatly enjoying his presence too. He was every bit as flamboyant and confident as you remembered him. Having him here physically (kinda) was an interesting testament to what Sans could do for sure. It certainly opened up some more questions though...

"OF COURSE! WITH YOUR AWAKENING WE CAN NOW BEGIN OUR DECISION ON WHAT TO DO NEXT!"

..Wow. That was definitely a thought huh? The three of you were now here in the scattered remains of a broken digital world. ...What could you do?

"What can we do?" you said, echoing your own thoughts. Papyrus seemed to beam at the question.

"WELL WE CERTAINLY DIDN'T SIT ON OUR COCCYXS THESE PAST THREE 'DAYS'," he said, once again with air quotes. "WE'VE ACTUALLY BEEN ABLE TO MAKE SOME RATHER AMAZING DISCOVERIES!" 

Papyrus' overly joyful tone and the way Sans seemed to sit up a bit actually filled you with some hope and even more questions that wanted answers. 

"i can actually branch outside of the game files," Sans added, seeing the questioning look on your face.

"R-really?" the shock in your tone was almost palpable. Beyond this game? There was something.. outside of here? Well, obviously there had to be.. but the fact that he could now reach outside of this place was incredible.

"mhm," he added, gazing around the room bit. "we've apparently been downloaded onto a computer of sorts and we've managed to take control of it."

That was... Awesome, quite frankly. You must've looked impressed because Sans just shrugs nonchalantly with just a slight bit of smugness in his smile.

"couldn't of done it without my bro though. isn't he cool?"

Papyrus absolutely beamed at the compliment and you couldn't possibly agree more.

"THERE WERE A FEW SNAGS INTO GETTING IT, BUT WE'VE OPENED UP SUCH A WIDE WORLD AROUND US," he said gleefully. "WE'VE EVEN DISCOVERED SOMETHING INCREDIBLE CALLED THE 'INTERNET'. TRULY A FASCINATING PLACE."

Huh. As much as this all excited you the 'snags' he had mentioned had you a little concerned. Sans obviously read you like a book though and elaborated a bit.

"i think that whoever the transfer student was is trying to get back in since we technically took over their comp," he mentioned. Your stomach sank a bit, but there wasn't a hit of worry in his tone at all which left you.. hopeful?

"HAVE NO FEAR MY FRIEND!" Papyrus said with such confidence it practically radiated off him. "I HAVE CREATED QUITE THE PUZZLE FOR THEM TO GET THROUGH BEFORE THEY COULD EVEN THINK OF GETTING THEIR GRUBBY LITTLE HANDS ANYWHERE NEAR THIS FILE AGAIN. AND THEN SEVERAL MORE AFTER THAT! NYEH HEH HEH."

"..You guys are seriously amazing," you said, the concern washing away completely as you were left in awe of them. Both of the brothers seemed happy to be recognized for all their hard work.

"sticking around this place still doesn't seem like the best idea though," Sans mentioned, a hint of remorse in his tone. 

..This world was you guy's home after all but ..it was in shambles. There was no one else here. Your school was a disaster and you're sure what's technically left of the city is probably even worse. There really wasn't much left to it was there?

"Is there no way to fix it?" you said, taking in the room once more. Even if it had technically been your first time inside this room it was still familiar. It still resounded in your memories as a second home to you, somewhere you and Sans had spent plenty of time together. To leave it all behind felt... heartbreaking.

"ANYTHING THAT ENTITY TOUCHED HAS BEEN CORRUPTED IN SOME WAY. MORE RECENT THINGS A LITTLE LESS SO, BUT GOING BACK FARTHER THAN THE SAVE THAT WE'RE CURRENTLY IN IS BASICALLY GONE FOR GOOD," Papyrus explain, looking a little saddened by your obviously hurt expression.

So this world was just.. broken. Unfixable. All of your classmates that disappeared were gone. Your family.. and your friends too. You at least wished you could of seen them one last time before all of this happened.. Apologized maybe? ..For failing them as their President ..and thanking them for protecting you. It left a quite ache in your heart that just didn't seem to go away.

"..we did manage to recover a few things though," Sans said, placing a hand on yours. You squeezed his softly as he pulled up that familiar menu again. There were new files, different from the ones you had seen before. Instead of a manilla folder icon they were blue but with the same gold lock on them as before. He navigated through a few more before you laid eyes on a folder labeled, 'don't forget'.

One click and...

Ah. Those were...

Three files labeled 'Peter', 'April' and 'Yvette'. The tears quickly found their way to your eyes as you saw them.

"T-they're..."

"..still corrupted," he admitted rather sadly. "but we managed to at least recover them. i guess the entity saved before deleting things in the school because we managed to crack into the very last save before this one and grab their files. it's all we had time to do before we got kicked out."

So there's a possibility now of restoring them?

That...

That alone was enough. 

Tears fell quickly as you shook your head. 

"I change my mind. You guys aren't just amazing you're.. incredible!" you said, smiling wide despite your tears. Sans pulled you close again and hugged you, and you felt another set of arms join in as Papyrus embraced you both tightly. How lucky were you? Warm. Safe. And now.. hopeful. Far behind a series of tricky puzzles and away from that anomaly ever coming near you again. You were so thankful to have these two by your side.

There was really only one thing left, huh?

"So, where can we go?" you asked after you all pulled back from the hug, both you and Papyrus each wiping away your own tears.

"anywhere," Sans said, a fascinated glimmer in his eyelight. Such a simple answer and yet so incredibly daunting.

"THE MYSTERIOUS INTERNET ALLOWS US TO CONNECT TO OTHER COMPUTERS ALL AROUND. THERE ARE TONS OF GAMES JUST LIKE THIS ONE, A FULL UNIVERSE OF OPPORTUNITIES AND ADVENTURE TO BE HAD, PLACES TO EXPLORE AND EVEN PEOPLE TO MEET!" Papyrus said, getting that same fanciful expression as before.

Anywhere. 

Anywhere at all.

"..anything catch your interest?" Sans asked, a smile gracing his face.

It took a few moments, the possibilities all swimming in your head but one in particular stood out.

"Maybe somewhere with a beach?" you proposed and both the brothers seemed to light up at that response. Truth be told you would be fine just about anywhere with these two by your side, but the idea of seeing a great blue sea called to your soul.

"AH, ANOTHER WONDERFUL ADDITION TO THE LIST!" Papyrus said and you watched as he opened a little note pad, not unlike the menus Sans could conjure, and adding onto a pre-established list. It was short, with notes like 'SOMEWHERE SNOWY. NOWHERE WITH CONVEYOR BELTS OR LASERS. somewhere to see the stars.' just to name a few, each one written in two different styles of fonts. And now, 'Somewhere with a beach,' was added in with your own little special font too.

"..So when do we leave?" you asked.

"WELL.. WHENEVER I SUPPOSE!" Papyrus added, closing the notepad almost bouncing to his feet. "SANS AND I HAVE DONE OUR BEST TO GATHER ALL OUR ITEMS AND COMPILE THEM INTO FILES IN PREPARATION! CLOTHES, ANY PERSONAL ITEMS THAT WE COULD FIND AND HOPEFULLY ANYTHING ELSE WE MAY NEED. YOU'D BE SURPRISED TO LEARN THAT NONE OF US ACTUALLY NEED TO EAT SO THAT SAVED US A LOT OF TROUBLE FROM HAVING TO PACK AWAY ANY FOOD."

Weird. 

"..didn't stop you from storing away all those tomatoes and pasta," Sans said and Papyrus let out a puff.

"WELL... YOU NEVER KNOW!! MAYBE WE'LL MEET SOMEONE ELSE WHO IS IN NEED OF SUCH NOURISHINGS AND WHO WOULD I BE TO DENY THEM A TRY OF MY SPECIAL SPAGHETTI?!"

You quickly swallowed another laugh. Well.. everything was set then, huh?

"..it's probably a lot to take in. we still have time, ya know. to stay, before this game ends," Sans said, gesturing to the room around you. He must've picked up on the slightly melancholy on your features and you let out a sigh you hadn't even realized you were holding on to. It was really.. a lot to take in. These whole past few days had been a lot to take in but you felt surprisingly at peace. There were still problems to tackle, still challenges to overcome and still the rather daunting idea of where you wanted to go from here.

But it was your choice now.

You got to chose what happens from now on.

No longer just an actor in a play, no longer confined by the limits of your code.

You were free.

"..Maybe just one day," you said, looking at them both, "to celebrate together before we go." These boys had accomplished so much while you were out, it would feel nice to do something for them, and it gave you the chance to have just a little bit more closure on everything. 

Papyrus gasped, his eyesockets filled with small, pixelated sparkles. 

"A PARTY IS AN ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC IDEA!"

"nice one prez," he said, an earnest smile on his face that made the corner of his eyesockets crinkle. 

And party you did, complete with old Christmas lights and streamers. You guys played a few board games and chatted about small things just up until Papyrus kicked you both out of the house temporarily to make his 'CELEBRATION SPAGHETTI', saying it was a must despite the fact that you guys apparently didn't need to eat.

"we can still recognize the data as flavors though," Sans said, his fingers now tapping the canned coffee he held. You let out a small hum, glancing down to your favorite soda in your hands, having asked why it was still so tangy and sweet to you if it wasn't really a soda. There was still something gripping about being composed of data and having everything about you stored in a file but.. You knew that there was nowhere out there in any world that it was safer with than with Sans. There was no one you trusted more than him. ...Papyrus was building a very strong case for taking second though.

A few petals danced on the wind as you looked on to the barren school field. Parts of the city and school were still gone, replaced by inky black voids of nothingness but.. it was nice to see it. Sans and you had decided to take a walk around to the areas you could visit, recounting the memories you two shared of them. The two of you now sat in your school uniforms, the last time you would ever done the attire you both had decided, and took a break on your favorite bench. It was.. a graduation of sorts before you moved on to somewhere new.

"Thank you Sans," you said, unable to tear your eyes away from the school as the breeze continued to pirouette small blossoms around. It was still too early for them to be in their full bloom. 

He laughed as he shook his head.

"if anything i should be thanking you ya know," he said, looking at you with twinkling eyelights. You smiled and narrowed your eyes playfully at him. "but how about we call ourselves even on that front, hm? or else we'll go back and forth thankin' each other forever."

That got you to laugh.

"Doesn't sound like such a bad thought but.. fine," you said, knowing that he was right. A small moment of silence befell you two as your stared on. Truth be told it was hard to see the school in such a state, a part of you wanted to keep the old idea of it in your memories forever as a place of happiness and joy, but this too served as a good reminder. Of your reality. Of what you were. And.. what some people out there might be capable of.

"..since it's our last i guess i should just come out and say it, huh?" Sans said, his voice breaking you from your thoughts.

You tilted your head slightly but.. you felt like you already knew what he was going to say.

"i love you."

So clear and concise. So warm and filled with love, something that you saw radiate on his handsome features as his cheeks were dusted with that beautiful blue magic. Guess it really didn't get any easier, huh? It was still, everything you hoped it would be.

"I love you too," you said. And you kissed him. 

You couldn't help yourself really. It was soft, sweet and a little short lived for your liking, but a slight notification sound made you pull back from him.

'EVERYTHING IS PREPARED, ALL I AM MISSING IS A CERTAIN BROTHER AND HUMAN TO TAKE PART IN THIS SPECIAL GOODBYE CELEBRATION SPAGHETTI!'

"ah dammit, c'mon bro," Sans mumbled, waving away the text notification between you two and you laughed. 

"Don't worry. There will be plenty more where that came from," you encouraged. He raised a browbone, a bit of a smirk on his face.

"that a promise?"

"For my wonderful VP? Of course," you motioned, standing up from the bench and offering your hand. He took it, and you two held them all the way home.

...Goodbye Ebott Senior High.

...Goodbye everyone.

  
  


You returned to the brothers' house and shared in the celebration spaghetti. It was awful, and you enjoyed every moment of it. They indulged you a little more about their process of bringing everything together into files, about compressing data and coding (and a few puns and plenty of groaning in response to said puns). It was a lot to follow with, but you enjoyed every moment of it. You all went to bed that night as you bunkered into Sans' room with him after making a promise to not 'CANOODLE' too much at Papyrus' request. You two canoodled the whole night and you absolutely enjoyed every moment of it.

The morning came. The Ebott High uniforms were left hung up in Sans' room and you made your way downstairs out into the fresh morning sun. 

"all set?" Sans asked, admiring your outfit. You giggled, the white sundress feeling nice against your skin. It felt appropriate at least, knowing your next destination would be somewhere with sand and waves crashing along the shore.

"All set," you confirmed.

"GOOD, BECAUSE ANYTHING LEFT BEHIND WILL PROBABLY VANISH COMPLETELY WHEN WE LEAVE THIS WORLD."

A heavy thought for sure, but you were completely ready to leave. You were taking all of your precious memories and cherished friends right along with you.

"I think we'll be okay as long as we have each other," you said, taking Sans' arm as he smiled. Papyrus shared the same grin, nodding his head.

"ALRIGHT, NEXT STOP-!"

"anywhere."

"And everywhere!"

  
  


..Goodbye Ebott City.

..Goodbye to this world.

  
  


The sweet scent of flowers was drifting in the breeze as petals danced carefully in their embrace. It was a beautifully sunny day..   
  
....and nobody was there.   
  
In an empty city.. In a broken game... the flowers bloomed.. but you were already gone.   
  
Far, far away. 

You have had enough Springs. 

It was time to finally enjoy a Summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and there they go, off into the multiverse! thank you all very much for reading rival! it was such a blast to finally write down this idea and i'm happy so many of you enjoyed it. it really kinda took on a life of it's own but i'm so pleased with how it turned out. thank you all very much for your encouraging comments and kudos, it really empowered me to keep going. i'll be cleaning up some more drabbles i have and posting them soon enough, so please look forward to it!


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